Ceramics Class
by SplatterCracker
Summary: When the students of Collège Françoise Dupont are required to choose elective classes for the spring semester, Alya all but forces Marinette and Adrien to sign up for ceramics together. However, things don't go according to plan when a certain artist joins the class as well with a secret of his own. (Reveal Fic) [Season One]
1. Chapter 1

**This beginning takes place before the Christmas special.**

 **Also, Lila doesn't exist yet. Or ever. Because screw Lila.**

* * *

Marinette Dupain-Cheng had no talent in music. Or writing, or drama, or programming, or, heavens forbid, _dancing_.

"This is stupid. What kind of school doesn't offer art as an elective choice," Marinette grumbled as she glared at her paper. It was a simple form with a listing of classes available for students to take in the spring. As per their educational requirements, every student was to choose an elective class for the spring. Including Marinette.

"They do have art. Just not drawing," Alya corrected as she tapped on her own paper with her pencil thoughtfully. "I heard the teacher for drawing is on maternity leave and they never found a replacement. Why not go for painting?"

Marinette scrunched up her nose. "I was never really good at painting."

"Choir?"

Marinette jerked her thumb at Chloe who sat painting her nails at her seat, her form obviously already filled out without much thought. The rest of the class chattered amongst themselves having been given free time to decide on their choices.

"Chloe's taking choir," Marinette deadpanned, her comment unnoticed by the girl in question thanks to the rest of the conversations around them.

Alya raised an eyebrow. "How do you know?"

"I was eavesdropping so I could avoid any extra classes with her," Marinette muttered.

Alya laughed. "Smart."

"What are you going to choose?"

"Journalism," Alya replied easily. "If that's full then web design doesn't sound bad either. Who knows, maybe I'll give the Ladyblog a makeover."

"I doubt journalism will be full," Marinette muttered.

Alya elbowed her playfully. "Oh, come on. I'm sure you like at least _one_ of these classes!"

When Marinette didn't reply, Alya rolled her eyes and turned to the front.

"Adrien! Nino! What did you two choose?"

Nino groaned and his head slumped forward into his hands. "Undecided. Why can't they have _cool_ classes?"

"There's always dance," Adrien suggested. "Don't you like dancing?"

"It's not the same kind, man," Nino grumbled into his palms.

"What about you then Adrien? Care to give Marinette here a few ideas?" Alya hinted, a grin on her face. Next to her, Marinette turned red.

"Hmm, I don't know." Adrien scratched his head as he looked at his paper, oblivious to the girl's blush. "Most likely piano since I already know how to play."

"How about you try something new? Something artsier," Alya said quickly at the look on Marinette's face. She couldn't blame the poor girl. Music was never something Marinette was good at. Or even remotely decent at.

"Something new?" Adrien turned to face the girls fully, a questioning look on his face. He tilted his head just slightly, a cute pose which was enough to send Marinette into a daze, much to Alya's growing amusement.

"Yeah, what's the point in relearning something for a whole semester? There are lots of things you could learn like…" Alya quickly scanned the page, a slight furrow on her brow.

"Ceramics," Nino said in surprise. He held his paper in one hand, a finger paused on the class title. "They have ceramics here?"

"Ceramics?" Adrien scanned his own list, a newfound interest on his face. "Like the clay thing? Pottery?"

"Dude, watch me make a di—"

"Ceramics sounds fun! Marinette, you should take it too," Alya interrupted Nino as she slung her arm over Marinette's shoulder, a smirk on her face. "How does that sound?"

"M-Me?" Marinette turned red as both Adrien and Nino turned to look at her. "I-I've never done ceramics before…"

"First time for everything," Nino said. He exchanged a quick glance with Alya, a grin on his face. Great. Now he was on it too.

"I-I don't know… What about you, Alya?" Marinette gave a pleading glance to her friend. But she only received a shrug.

"Ah, well, you know me. Not good at that art thing. And besides, clay isn't really my thing. But I'm sure Nino and Adrien will take _good_ care of you. Won't you guys?"

"Sure, I don't mind. You can sit with us," Adrien replied easily. Marinette just about died right then and there.

"Then it's decided!" Alya clapped her hands gleefully. She looked as if Christmas came early. "Ceramics, then?"

"Ceramics," Nino agreed as he turned to the front again, making a small check next to the class. Adrien did the same. Alya had to check Marinette's paper for the dazed girl. Just in time, too.

"Alright class, is everyone done with their papers?" Ms. Bustier clapped her hands together, effectively quieting the class. Murmurs of confirmation followed her question to which the teacher smiled.

"Now, I know all of you are excited since it's the last day before winter break so I won't keep you long. I'd like for you all to turn your papers in before you leave and to remember to do your winter homework but other than that, you are free to leave. Happy holidays, everyone," Ms. Bustier ended with a smile as the whole class simultaneously reached for their bags. Some, like Kim, were already standing by the time their teacher finished talking. Others paused to bid holiday farewells to each other.

Alya elbowed Marinette roughly as soon as the class ended, causing the other girl to yelp.

"So Adrien, Nino. Any plans for winter break?"

Adrien turned and smiled politely, if not a little confused by how talkative Alya was that day. Sure, the girl was talkative in general but this was a little more than usual, even for her. Nino, however, understood exactly what she was after.

"My father wants me to stay home and study when I'm not modeling."

Both Nino and Alya pulled a face.

"Does he know that it's called winter _break_ for a reason?" Nino chided. "Man, how are you supposed to have fun if you're cooped up all day? Not cool."

Adrien shrugged. Truthfully, he wasn't cooped up all day. When he wasn't out modeling for some photo shoot or something, he was out doing patrols. And, of course, there was the occasional random Akuma attack that happened at least once a week or so. It was thanks to Plagg that he was able to sneak off to roam the streets whenever he wished to which made his life a lot less stifling.

"You know how he is. You saw how he reacted to me having a birthday party."

Nino muttered something under his breath as Alya pouted. There went her plans for setting them up on a date during the break.

"And I thought _my_ parents were unreasonable," Alya said downheartedly. She comforted herself with the fact that at the very least they'll be in the same elective class next semester. And who knows, maybe Marinette would actually make a move.

Alya glanced at her friend. The girl in question was still in a daze, her face red. She stayed silent during the whole conversation, probably just to avoid stuttering again. Alya sighed.

Who was she kidding? She'll have to get Nino to push the two together before her ship even _considers_ sailing.

Adrien laughed at Alya's remark. "Well, I'm his prized only son after all. He's expecting me to inherit his business from him."

"Psh." Alya waved her hand dismissively. "You can do so much more than modeling. Isn't that right, Marinette?"

The girl jolted as if she was shocked. Her face turned red all over again. "Y-Yes! Not that you're bad at modeling—You're great at it! You look good as a model—I MEAN _,_ you _always_ look good!" Marinette squeaked out.

Nino had to turn to hide his laugh.

Adrien raised a brow, oblivious confusion on his face. "Thanks...I guess?"

Rolling her eyes, Alya simply grabbed the stammering girl by her elbow and steered her out of their benches. Okay, so maybe Marinette could use some work on her social skills around Adrien during the break. Or, at the very least, her speaking skills.

"Right. Anyways, we're going to go now. I'm sure Adrien's driver is waiting for him too," Alya said with a smile. "Happy holidays, guys."

Adrien's eyes widened. "Aw, shoot. I forgot I have a shoot after school today!"

Nino laughed as the boy all but ran out the door, a hasty "Happy holidays!" thrown over his shoulders as he left before following his friend out.

"Alya!" Marinette turned to her friend, panic in her eyes. "Ceramics class with Adrien? You know I won't survive without you! I can't even talk properly around him!"

"Consider it an early Christmas gift," Alya laughed. "Who knows, maybe something will come out of it."

Marinette blushed. Sitting with Adrien... Talking with Adrien... Maybe even laughing along with Adrien... It seemed too good to be true. It probably _was_ too good to be true.

"Besides, I'll strangle you myself if you don't make _some_ sort of improvement in your relationship with him by the end of the semester," Alya promised. "I didn't invest so much time shipping you two for nothing."

"Alya!"

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Edit (6/27/17): This story is beginning ceramics friendly; no prior knowledge is required to understand. I will be explaining basic ceramics through this and ceramic related questions are encouraged; although I am not an expert, I have been a ceramics teaching assistant and student for years now (my wheelwork skills are rusty though)**

 **I should really finish my other Miraculous fic. Whoops.**

 **But my 2nd anniversary with my boyfriend is coming up so I've had this prompt based off on how we met in my head for a while so I had to write this. The difference is that he and I met in ceramics but since Adrien and Marinette already had classes together that had to be changed. For those of you who read Adrien's Fianc** **ée, yes this is the same boyfriend who I based that prompt off of, lol**

 **Thanks for reading! Reviews make me smile :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**This chapter is mostly to set up the ceramics room as that will be where I plan to have most of the story take place in. Not every ceramic room fits this description. See endnote for more info.**

 **Ceramics Fact:** **Evidence dates the beginning of pottery for food/water use as early as 10,000BC. The very first-time ceramics was done can be as early as 24,000BC and the first kilns were likely dug into the ground. (The American Ceramic Society)**

* * *

Marinette nervously took a seat on a wooden stool at one of the tables, one of the many in the room. The seat wobbled as she shifted in it and she briefly debated on whether she should exchange it for another one but ultimately decided against it. None of the other stools seemed to be much better off themselves. Besides, at least hers didn't have a crack down the middle. Just how old were these stools?

It was the first day of the spring semester and she was early. The earliest of all of her classmates, to be precise. The only other person in the room was the ceramics teacher, an older woman whose face was just starting to be filled with wrinkles but her eyes still shone with a hidden spirit. She had smiled at Marinette before telling her she could sit anywhere she liked to.

As the first student in the room, she sat at one of the front tables, not wanting to offend the woman by sitting too far.

With the new semester requiring students to take an elective class, the school had arranged it so that elective classes would be the first class of the day. Since students all had different electives, it would make more sense for them to take their different ones first before merging back with their usual classmates for the rest of the day. Really, Marinette suspected that it was just so that late students would miss part of their elective classes rather than part of their core academic classes.

Various ceramic pieces decorated the room, ranging from small pastel figures to dusty bowls big enough for Marinette to sit in. White metal shelves lined one section of the room which seemed to be the only empty space available aside from the tables. Nearly every wall was lined with either drawers or shelves from various material and shapes as if the teacher had just collected them over the years without much care for their appearance as long as they worked. Aside from the door that led out of the classroom, there was another double door permanently propped wide open with a small metal cabinet on the opposite side of the room. From the table that Marinette sat at, she could just make out a large metal sink with several faucets.

Although the eight tables in the room where the students sat were the emptiest in the room, they weren't completely without items. Each of the tables had its own spray bottle and a set of tools held within a bright colorful ceramic holder printed with flowers and other generic shapes. Curiously, Marinette lifted the tool holder only for the tools to fall right through the bottom, clattering loudly onto the table.

She heard a chuckle and quickly looked up, embarrassed. The teacher looked at her in amusement.

"Those don't have bottoms so I would be careful," the woman spoke, quiet laughter in her voice. Her eyes crinkled at the edges. "It's easier to clean that way."

"Oh," Marinette replied lamely. Her cheeks flushed as she hurriedly replaced the tools back to their holder. Clay dust stuck her hands as she touched the tools. "Did you make these?"

The woman shook her head slightly. "Some students made them. We remake them every other year or so when they break."

"I see," Marinette trailed off. She wracked her brain and cursed herself for not reading her new schedule carefully; otherwise, she'd know the woman's name. Of course, she could just pull out her schedule from her backpack she didn't want to risk it being obvious and coming off as rude.

Turns out, she didn't have to.

"What's your name?" the woman asked as she peered at Marinette curiously.

"Um, Marinette."

The woman glanced at her desktop which faced her desk, one of the two computers in the room. What a ceramics class needed a computer aside from the teacher's for, she didn't know.

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng?"

Marinette nodded.

The woman smiled. "I'm Ms. Ro."

"Nice to meet you," Marinette said, feeling a little awkward.

Thankfully, Ms. Ro only gave a smile in reply before returning to her computer. A few minutes went by in silence before a quiet tell-tale scrape of a stool against the floor from the other side of the room caught Marinette's attention. Turning to see the newcomer, Marinette was surprised to see none other than Nathaniel taking a seat at one of the back tables closest to the door.

For a moment, their eyes met before Nathaniel immediately looked down and clutched his sketchbook closer to his chest.

Marinette quickly turned back to the front, awkward from the accidental eye contact.

What was Nathaniel doing there? Well, it wasn't too big of a surprise actually. He was the class artist after all but she had expected him to go into painting or the anime and manga class. In fact, she was almost sure that he would have chosen the anime and manga class.

Marinette was in the middle of debating with herself whether or not it would be too weird to go and talk to Nathaniel after that initial awkwardness when a familiar clatter resounded from the back of the room.

Holding the decorated cylinder with one hand while the other gripped the bottom in a delayed attempt to catch the falling tools, Nathaniel stared at the scattered wooden and metal tools in surprise.

Ms. Ro laughed quietly and Marinette couldn't resist smiling along.

"I did the same thing a few minutes ago," Marinette laughed. Nathaniel sheepishly returned the tools back to their cylinder.

"You're here early," Nathaniel commented, his voice just barely reaching the front of the kept his head angled downward, but his eyes stayed on Marinette.

"I was excited for today," Marinette confessed. It wasn't a lie; today would be her chance to sit next to Adrien. She couldn't risk arriving late and being stuck with whatever seat was left over.

"Excited enough to arrive twenty minutes before class starts?"

Marinette shrugged. "What about you then? Why are you here so early?"

Nathaniel looked down. "For the same reason as you, I guess."

With that, he ended the conversation, silence taking over the room once again. The rest of the time passed that way. After a while, students slowly but surely began trickling in and quiet chatter began to fill the room. Luckily, none of them sat next to her. Unlike other classes, elective classes were mixed with students of other grades. The next faces that Marinette recognized came a few minutes before the start of class, Nino and Adrien.

"Marinette!" Nino's face lit up at the sight of the girl. Adrien followed his friend, a smile on his own face as Marinette flushed.

"Good morning," Marinette mumbled, her eyes darting to the floor.

For nearly all of winter break, Alya had practiced speaking with her around pictures of Adrien. Not much good that did in front of the real thing. Heck, she still had some trouble just talking to pictures of him for goodness sake.

"Morning," Adrien greeted, flashing his model smile. As the boys grabbed some stools from under the table, however, Ms. Ro interrupted them.

"Two to a table, please."

The pair looked up at the teacher in surprise before glancing at each other uncertainly. Nino's eyes flashed to Marinette's, a frown on his face.

"Er…" Even Adrien looked unsure of what to do. They couldn't just ask Marinette to move so that the guys could sit together. That would just be rude. But that would mean the pair separating.

Marinette's heart sank.

It was Nino who spoke first. "Here, I'll mov—"

Marinette stood, her backpack already slung over one shoulder. "I'll move."

Both Nino and Adrien looked surprised and even a tab bit relieved. But then Nino frowned again.

"What? No, it's cool. You were here first, I can move somewhere so _you and Adrien_ can sit together," Nino reassured her, a smile on his face. Marinette turned pink at the emphasis on her and Adrien. Clearly, Alya had him firmly hooked into her plan already.

"I'll be okay," Marinette insisted. A small part of her was relieved as well. She wasn't sure if her heart could handle being alone at a table with Adrien. With her luck, he'd probably accidentally brush his hand against hers and she'd faint on the spot. She scooted her stool out a little. "Here, you guys sit."

"Are you sure?" Adrien asked, his eyes wide with worry. The sight was almost enough to make her squeal. Adrien, concerned for her?

Yup, it was definitely a good idea to move.

Marinette only managed a short, jerky nod before scurrying out of the way. She turned and scanned the classroom. Almost immediately, her eyes met Nathaniel's again.

He was the only one looking up at her, the rest of the students were too absorbed in their own conversations to have noticed the exchange of seats taking place. And, as luck would have it, he was one of the only people who still didn't have a table partner.

Giving him a hesitant smile, she walked towards his table.

* * *

 **I cannot speak for all ceramic studios, but generally, school (especially grade schools) studios tend to be really...cluttered. Lol. Years of students forgetting or not picking up their work can build up easily. Larger studios might have a separate room just for storing pieces in order to control humidity better while smaller studios, as described in this chapter, might just have pieces wrapped and stored in the open but it's not ideal. Kilns are almost always put in their own area if not their own room because that shit's hot and there are too many stupid people in the world. In my experience, studios are cleaner when multiple instructors/artists are running it and there's at least one lab tech.**

 **Author's Note:**

 **Okay, I swear I have more AdrienXMarinette action coming soon. Short unedited chapter (sorry) but I got stumped on how to finish this so….**

 **Reviews make me smile :)**

 **Thank you to** **missdragongirl,** **FicsFromAnAnbuNin, mayuralover** **, izzy, and Guest for reviewing**


	3. Chapter 3

**Ceramics Fact: You should never add water to a piece that is bone dry. Bone dry is exactly what it sounds like; at that point, the clay has no moisture in it whatsoever and a sudden exposure to a large amount of moisture will cause it to crumble and fall apart. You can tell a piece is bone dry by touching it, if the clay is still cool to the touch then the piece still has some moisture in it. If it is no longer cool to the touch and has turned a more pale color then it is most likely bone dry (Keep in mind that if your piece has varying thickness then not all parts might be at the same level of dryness)**

* * *

As Marinette sat down next to the artist, Nathaniel's grip on his pencil tightened ever so slightly as he continued to sketch what looked like ideas for future ceramics projects.

"Hey Nathaniel, do you mind if I sit here?" Marinette asked with a smile. Inside, she berated herself for asking after she sat down.

His hand paused. "...I don't mind."

"Ah, okay."

Silence fell between them.

Marinette shifted in her seat as she glanced over at Nathaniel's sketchbook. Sketches of various ceramic projects decorated the page, from small cups to fountains. Designs accompanied each one such as flowers and familiar game logos.

"Are those things you want to make?" Marinette asked, surprised. "I thought you drew people."

"...I can still draw objects. I don't just draw people."

"Oh." Marinette flushed. Of course he wouldn't just draw people. "What have you been drawing lately?"

"Erm," Nathaniel blushed as he stared down at his sketchbook. "...Ladybug."

Marinette cocked her head to a side in surprise. "Ladybug?"

Nathaniel nodded ever so slightly. He looked at her through the corner of his eyes. His embarrassment was still obvious but his expression was nearly neutral, save for a hint of curiosity in his eyes. "You have a remarkably similar figure to Ladybug, Marinette. I noticed that after I started drawing Ladybug. The same hair, eyes, face…"

Marinette stiffened. Then she laughed nervously. "A-Ah, what a weird coincidence! I never noticed that!"

"Really?" Nathaniel looked unconvinced.

"R-Really!"

Nathaniel turned away, dropping the subject, much to Marinette's relief. She didn't think that she could have handled any more questions without letting something slip. But then again… Marinette glanced at Nathaniel who had returned to his sketches of ceramic projects. She couldn't help feeling that she had already let something slip. She chewed her lip worriedly.

It was at that moment that Ms. Ro decided to start class.

"Welcome to ceramics class," the woman began with a smile, her voice just barely reaching the whole room. Marinette had a feeling that if even a few people hadn't stopped talking, they wouldn't be able to hear the teacher at all. Ms. Ro didn't bother raising her voice much more than the volume she usually spoke at. "I am Ms. Ro, your ceramics teacher. We're not going to do ceramics today yet—I know, I know, but fir, t we must learn the basics before we start. How many of you have done ceramics before?"

A small handful of hands went up. To Marinette's surprise, Nathaniel's hand went up along with Adrien's. Huh. So much for not having done ceramics before.

"That's good. So how many of you have heard of 'wedging'?"

Nathaniel's hand once again went up. His hand was the only hand that went up, actually.

"It's the process of removing air bubbles from the clay so that they don't explode while firing," Nathaniel answered.

Ms. Ro smiled approvingly. "Very good. What's your name?"

"Nathaniel."

Ms. Ro nodded. "Yes, so as Nathaniel said, wedging is to remove air bubbles from clay. Many students have told me that they have used air dry clay before, or polymer clay. This is very different. Who can tell me one difference?"

Once again, Nathaniel's hand shot up. Marinette glanced at the boy curiously. It was rare for Nathaniel to participate in class. In fact, despite having been classmates for over half a decade now, she couldn't even remember the last time he _had_ voluntarily participated in class.

"Yes, Nathaniel?"

"Clay dust is harmful to your lungs and breathing them in will damage your lungs because of their small particle size. Also, real clay turns more fragile as it dries and needs to be fired in a kiln to harden."

"Correct. Clay dust can cause silicosis which can be fatal. It is why moisture is so important in this room. It is also why there is a spray bottle on each table." Ms. Ro turned towards one side of the room where two tables stood, a few feet apart positioned a couple feet away from the whiteboard behind them, giving space to walk around and between the tables. Resting on each of the tables was a wooden box, no more than half a foot tall, that took up most of the table surface. Encased within the wooden sides was a white material covered with dry clay that filled the whole middle. Several blocks of grey clay wrapped in plastic bags rested on top.

"Those are the wedging tables. They're mainly used for wedging clay because when you wedge on plaster, the plaster dries the clay out which is useful sometimes. On the table right now are 'new' clay, but as the semester progresses, always use 'recycled' clay first which will be in that trash can over there." She gestured towards the said trash can next to the wedging table. Like the table, the can was covered in dry clay.

"Our first project will be simple. One working stamp of your initials. We will spend today's class designing your stamps; I expect six different designs by the start of class tomorrow. After that, we'll begin actually working with clay and practice wedging. You can spend the rest of class working on designs." With that, she sat back down in her seat, already beginning to type on her computer.

Marinette frowned. "That was vague," she said, partly to herself.

Nathaniel shrugged as he flipped over to a new page in his sketchbook. Following his lead, Marinette pulled out her own sketchbook. It was a simple, small sketchbook that she normally used for fashion design on the go. Flipping to a blank page, she began drawing.

* * *

"So!" Alya wove her arm around Marinette's with a grin. "How'd it go? Don't leave out any details!"

Marinette smiled sheepishly. "It was okay…"

"Okay? Girl, you have three seconds to spill it."

It was after school. The pair was just leaving the school building, walking quickly to avoid being shoved by other students who were in a much bigger hurry. Alya had jumped on the first chance to interrogate Marinette about the class even though she'd been dying to the whole day. Unfortunately for Alya, Adrien's seat was too close to theirs to talk about him in class so she had no choice but to wait until after school.

"Well...I don't really sit near him…"

"What?" Alya stared at Marinette with a frown of disapproval and annoyance. "Why not? I swear if it's because you chickened out…"

"It wasn't my fault!" Marinette held up her hands in defense. "The seating was two to a table! I couldn't just split up Nino and Adrien!"

"I mean, you _could_."

"Alya, that would be rude."

"What's rude is foiling my plans to get you to together!" Alya wailed. "At this rate, my ship will never sail! Do you even sit near him?"

"Well...I sit on the other end of the room…"

"Marinette!"

"In my defense, it was the only seat remaining!" Marinette protested.

Alya swore under her breath. She pulled out her phone, furiously texting away as Marinette took hold of her elbow and started guiding her friend through the streets.

"It's a nice class though. I like the teacher," Marinette commented. "I sit next to Nathaniel too, although we didn't really talk during class time..."

"Mm? What'd you guys do?" Alya asked distractedly.

"We designed some stamps...Alya, what are you doing?"

"Texting Nino."

Marinette looked at Alya wearily. "About what?"

"Nothing."

* * *

 **Wedging on plaster is especially useful when doing wheelwork and you're reusing the clay from your previous' attempt's corpse. There are several wedging techniques but only ram's head wedging will be described in this story. Wedging is also used to mix clay of different moisture levels so instead of having some overly moist clay and some nearly dry clay.**

 **Author's Note:**

 **Super short chapter (whoops)**

 **Also, I lied apparently. AdrienXMarinette stuff** _ **soon**_ **since I didn't plan for the chapter to be this short (double whoops)**

 **My motivation for this story is fueled by my boyfriend but we got into an argument which really delayed this story...But motivation is starting to come back! Now hopefully I can still finish this by April Fool's in time for our two year anniversary ^^**

 **I am working on chapter 4 right after I post this chapter and it'll hopefully be out by tonight ^^**

 **Reviews make me smile :)**

 **Thank you to** **RoxPox, Guest, UsuixMisaki Love,** **mayuralover** **, Dan,** **missdragongirl, Luiz4200, izzy, FicsFromAnAnbuNin, ML-trash tublr, and KisetsuWaTsugitsugiShindeiku!**


	4. Chapter 4

Marinette had a problem.

Well, it really depends on the perspective. Alya would have probably shamelessly celebrated if she was there.

Nino grinned at her sheepishly from his seat next to a less than thrilled looking Nathaniel as Marinette stood in confusion in the doorway of the classroom. Across the room, Adrien sat by himself at his table looking no less confused than Marinette, obviously wondering why the heck did his best friend just abandon him for seemingly no reason. Marinette hid a sigh. So that was what Alya was texting Nino about.

On one hand, Marinette was glad that she didn't have to sit next to Nathaniel after those comments from yesterday about her looking like Ladybug. Sure, he didn't _directly_ accuse her of being Ladybug, but it was enough to have her stressed for all of last night. Funny how a simple comment could stress someone so much.

But on the other hand, that meant that she had to sit next to _Adrien_. And that was _not_ something she had mentally prepared herself for. As if sensing her thoughts on him, Adrien glanced up, catching Marinette's eye. He smiled uncertainly, shrugged, and pulled out the stool next to him, clearing inviting her to sit.

Oh boy.

Taking a deep breath, she made her way across the room.

"Good morning, Marinette," Adrien greeted politely with a smile.

Marinette smiled back. Or at least she tried. It was suddenly hard to remember how to smile at that moment.

"M-Morning, Adrien," Marinette replied with a squeak. She stood frozen next to the table, unable to quite bring herself to sit next to him.

"Sorry about Nino stealing your seat," Adrien began apologetically. "I don't know what came over him. He insisted on sitting next to Nathaniel today."

"O-Oh, really? That's, um, weird…" Marinette forced out a small laugh. Still, she didn't move from her spot to sit.

Noticing this, Adrien looked at her questioningly. "Do you not want to sit next to me?"

Marinette jumped. "O-Of course I want to sit next to you! Who wouldn't want to sit next to you? You're Adrien after all!"

"Er…"

Marinette blushed furiously. "I mean since you're a great friend and all…" Oh lord have mercy.

Letting the conversation drop awkwardly, she simply took her seat next to him, hyper-aware of how close their arms were side to side. Her chair slightly lurched to the side as she shifted her weight, bringing her even closer to him, a movement which he didn't seem to take notice of. If she just moved her arm an inch to the left…

"Good morning, class," Ms. Ro greeted with her usual small smile. The class quieted down. "I hope you all have your designs. I'll be coming around to check them so please have them out."

Murmurs, along with a few groans, filled the class as the students began digging into their bags. Already, she heard a few curses from the table behind them. Marinette pulled out her sketchbook and flipped to the page from yesterday, careful to keep her movements casual and not fall into her habit of moving like a trained robot while nervous. Adrien seemed to not notice as he pulled out a folder neatly labeled "Ceramics Class"

"Did you get all your designs done?" Adrien asked, a smile on his face. He kept his folder closed.

"Y-Yeah, do you want to see?" Marinette tilted her book towards him.

She was a little proud of the designs actually. Since she and Nathaniel had quite a bit of experience with designing and drawing already, they had finished quite early on in the class. They didn't talk much; Marinette was too much on edge the whole time to allow for any casual conversation. But what did happen was that once they had realized they had both finished early, both artists had subtly started adjusting their designs in an attempt to one-up each other until it had turned into a silent competition. Nathaniel had begun with a variety of simple cartoon styled objects to which Marinette replied with the same style but with more details. Nathaniel, noticing her challenge, changed his style, keeping his designs simple yet extremely detailed, more than Marinette's designs. After that, the two spent the rest of the class silently, yet furiously, trying to out-do the other.

The result, after many scratched out designs and erased and redrawn parts, were six beautiful designs each. Every design had their own themes such as floral vines, cherry blossoms, or marine life. They were also probably far too complicated to turn into a stamp, something neither she nor Nathaniel had thought of.

"These are very nice," Ms. Ro complemented, walking up to the table. She smiled as she studied the designs. "Your name is Marinette, right?"

"Yes," Marinette replied nervously. Next to her, Adrien started fidgeting as he drew his paper closer.

"And what about your designs?" Ms. Ro turned to Adrien, an expectant smile on her face.

"Er…" Adrien slowly opened his folder and pulled out a sheet of paper. Despite his subtle attempts to partially hide his designs from Marinette's view, she caught a glimpse.

To say they were crude was an understatement.

Ms. Ro said nothing, simply raising an eyebrow. Then she nodded and walked away.

As soon as the teacher turned, Adrien hastily flipped his paper over. Marinette could see the tips of his ears turn red. Before she could say anything, however, Adrien murmured something incoherent under his breath.

"Huh?"

"My dad never put me in any drawing classes," Adrien repeated, this time just barely audible. His ears were still red and he looked away in embarrassment.

Marinette giggled, more out of surprise than anything else. Adrien? Bad at drawing? She didn't think that there was anything that the model was bad at, but here he was embarrassed that he couldn't draw well. It made her feel better; it felt like he was an actual person with flaws just like her instead of a perfect model that she had always made him out to be.

Adrien pouted a just the barest of pouts. If anyone asked, he would have denied it.

"I'm better with my hands at making things. I just don't draw often. Or at all for that matter."

"It's okay, Adrien," Marinette chuckled. "No one starts off good at anything."

"You're pretty good at drawing, though," Adrien commented, almost wistfully. He eyed her drawing sullenly before looking away.

Marinette shrugged. "I've been drawing designs since I was young. It's not a very useful skill, though."

"You didn't take classes?" Adrien asked, slightly surprised.

Marinette shook her head. "Classes cost money. I never really needed any and I didn't want to burden my parents by asking."

"But who teaches you?" Adrien frowned slightly.

"Myself?"

"You can teach yourself how to draw?"

"Well, yes…" Marinette looked at Adrien curiously. "It just takes practice. And maybe some internet tutorials. Haven't you ever learned something yourself?"

"Ah…" Adrien scratched the back of his head. "My dad always signed me up for lessons for as long as I can remember. I usually have too many lessons to have time to learn something on my own. I didn't even have time to meet people, which is why I wanted to go to a public school for the first time."

"So you didn't have any friends besides _Chloe_?" Marinette asked, bewildered. Did he grow up with only Chloe as a friend? Poor guy.

"There were other children. Sometimes. But Chloe has always been the closest out of them," Adrien confirmed. "Nino was the first real close friend I've had."

"Wow." Once again, Marinette felt guilty about separating the two. Sure, it was Alya who had specifically asked (or rather, _threatened_ , knowing how she was) Nino to switch seats but that didn't make her feel any better.

"Yeah, I don't know why he moved. He didn't say anything either. I hope he isn't mad at me," said Adrien with a frown. He glanced over his shoulder at the said friend who sat in mutual discomfort with Nathaniel. It was actually kind of amusing seeing the normally talkative Nino sitting so quietly.

Marinette laughed nervously. "Oh, I'm sure he has his own reasons."

"Yeah, I guess…"

Before Marinette could further reassure him, Ms. Ro cleared her throat. She smiled at the students.

"I'm glad that _most_ of you have your designs. Today, we'll be starting to use clay. So the first thing we do with clay is to wedge. This is to mainly remove air bubbles but it can also be used to mix two pieces of clay. For example, if one piece is too dry, you can wedge it with a wetter piece to mix the two moisture levels." She walked over to the wedging table, rolling up her sleeves as she did so. Reaching into one of the bags of clay that sat upon the table, she cut out a small slab using a piece of string that she had been holding onto.

"Even though this clay is coming directly from the bag, we still need to wedge it. We'll only be using one type of wedging in this class which is really simple." She smashed the clay slab into a ball and placed it upon the plaster table as she stood on the side with her back to the wall so that the whole class could see the clay.

"Wedging is similar to kneading dough. First, you push forward as well as slightly downward with both heels of your hand," Ms. Ro said as she demonstrated slowly. "You don't want to push too far downwards and flatten the clay; try to keep it in a lump rather than a slab. Then you pull the clay back to where you first started. This pulling back towards yourself should slightly rotate the clay into a different angle than the first time and do the process again. Once you repeat this for a minute or so, you can turn the whole lump to the side and repeat."

Ms. Ro demonstrated, first slowly then quickly. Her hands moved quickly, almost too fast to keep up with. Some students tried following her movements. Only a few were able to do so confidently.

"You have to remember that doing this on plaster will dry your clay out. Don't wedge too long either even if you're not wedging on plaster. That's a mistake many beginners make. Wedging is also best done standing so you can put your weight into it. And when you're done," she stopped and took the string she had used previously. "You can cut it in half. If you see air bubbles then you'll have to wedge it all again. If not, just put the pieces together and give one or two wedges and then you can begin. You don't have to cut your clay in half every time, only when you want to make sure there isn't air. Any questions?"

The class was silent.

"Good. You may use any of the tools at your table. Remember to keep your clay moist to prevent dust. I will give a demonstration of how to attach to pieces of clay tomorrow. _Do not_ try to attach two pieces of clay by sticking them together. You may get started now."

The class began talking excitedly. Adrien and Marinette glanced at each other before he stood up, a smile on his face. "I'll go get some clay."

"Ah, thanks," Marinette said, offering a small smile. She hoped that it only felt like she was blushing.

"No problem." He was already turning away, flashing one of his model smiles. Half of the class was already gathered around the wedging table, eager to get started working with clay.

When Adrien finally did return with two small lumps of clay, Marinette stood and took one lump from his hands. She was careful to not touch his hands as she took her lump in fear of melting from bliss right there on the spot.

The clay was cool to the touch and slightly moist. The texture was surprisingly really smooth, almost as if she was holding playdough. It was smoother than playdough in fact, and a lot heavier.

"Roll up your sleeves," Adrien advised. Marinette noticed his were already rolled up. She did so after setting the cool lump on the table. She frowned as she looked at her clay.

"Do you remember how to do it?" Adrien asked, a frown on his own face. He poked his clay uncertainly as he gave a half-hearted shove with his hands in an awkward imitation of what Ms. Ro had done which did nothing except getting the clay stuck onto the table. Around them, the class was having similar reactions. Some students giggled as they played with their clay as others huffed in annoyance before scraping their clay off the table.

"Don't push so hard in the beginning," Marinette advised. She turned to her own lump, giving it an experimental push with the heels of her hands. It reminded her of kneading dough, except the clay was a lot heavier as well as less mushy. Pulling back the clay, she repeated the process. Pretty soon, she had a steady rhythm going.

"How...are you doing that?" Adrien asked in astonishment. His own lump of clay was already flattened onto the table. "Have you done this before?"

"No," Marinette admitted. She turned her clay onto its side, remembering what Ms. Ro had said about turning before continuing to wedge. "But it's a little similar to working with dough. My family runs a bakery."

"Wow…" Adrien looked impressed as he ripped his failure off of the table. "That's so cool."

Marinette blushed. "It's nothing much, really."

"Can you teach me?" Adrien made a face at the clay in his hands. He gathered the remains of his attempt at wedging into a ball before placing it on the table again. "I don't know why mine keeps sticking to the table…"

"A-Ah, sure…" Marinette slowed her hands as Adrien watched. "I think it sticks to the table because it's too wet...I just kept wedging and mine started to dry out. So I think you should just keep going."

"Like this?"

"Move your hands closer…"

"Um…" Adrien grimaced.

"H-Here." Acting far braver than she felt, Marinette reached over and adjusted his hands with her own into the correct position. "T-The heels of your hands should be close together...Like this. Kinda like making a V shape with your hands."

"Ah, thanks." Adrien looked surprised but quickly wiped it off his face. Turning red, Marinette quickly withdrew her hands.

"N-No problem..."

* * *

 **Never try to connect two clay pieces by just sticking them together. It's not playdough and it will fall off eventually.**

 **Author's Note:**

 **Remember when I said this chapter would be up last night? Funny story, I was writing this chapter on my laptop in bed, blinked, and it was 7 AM in the morning and I was in lying down with no recollection of even closing my laptop. I was on a video call at the time too, which I apparently ended after crawling under the covers and murmuring something about sleeping according to my boyfriend.**

 **Reviews make me smile :)**

 **Thank you to** **Diane,** **FicsFromAnAnbuNin, missdragongirl** **,** **obsidiandragon182005, Guest (2), Luiz4200, mayuralover, Dan, Swirlspot, and Dancing Princess for reviewing!**

 **Diane - Ah, thank you for catching that! I meant to type wary but I probably misspelled it and it autocorrected and slipped past my notice… Happens often lol...I'll change it soon!**

 **Luiz4200 - Your guess is spot on!**


	5. Important Announcement

**IMPORTANT NOTE:**

 **This story originally had a goal of being completed by April first. I was not lying. I didn't plan on continuing to write this after that deadline so I will not be continuing this story past this point.**

 **Sorry.**

 **I'll probably start again when my third anniversary with my boyfriend comes up so I'll keep this marked incomplete... Or drop this altogether if we break up since this story was inspired by our relationship...**

 **Welp, I'm sure there are other good Miraculous fanfictions out there. It's a shame since this is my most followed story right now... But Western tradition requires me to inform you guys about this on this day...**

 **Luckily, I have a friend who is willing to pick up this story; details on where to find the rest of the story on their profile will be in the next chapter.**

 **Thanks for going on this ride of a story with me!**


	6. Chapter 5

**April Fools is a holiday/tradition celebrated in most Western countries on the first of April where people engage in playing pranks and telling lies.**

Marinette gripped the straps of her backpack nervously. She had arrived early today, unfortunately.

Adrien and Nino hadn't arrived yet which meant that she had to decide on sitting in her seat from the first day or at the front where Adrien usually sat. Would Adrien think she was rude if she just assumed she'd be sitting with him again? Should she wait? What if someone took the table while she was deciding? How fast would Alya kill her if she _didn't_ sit next to Adrien?

Marinette made a face. On second thought, Alya's rage was worse than any awkwardness that would come from sitting next to Adrien again. The girl had been ecstatic when Marinette told her that she had actually sat next to Adrien yesterday and telling her that she went back to her first seat by choice would undoubtedly set off more trouble than it was worth.

Taking a seat on the better stool at the same table from the previous day, Marinette nervously glanced around her. No sign of Adrien or Nino yet. Or Nathaniel for that matter. Only about half of the class was in the room already. The students who were already in their seats were either chattering amongst themselves or sitting quietly like Marinette, waiting for someone familiar to arrive. Ms. Ro sat at her desk, as usual, a small royal blue ceramic bowl filled with what looked like the remains of a cereal breakfast sat on top of her desk in front of the teacher as she flipped through her grade book.

Marinette frowned. Alya would probably interrogate her again later. She had a feeling that this was the beginning of a routine. Survive ceramics class, go to her normal classes, and get interrogated by Alya on the way out of school. And, if today went the same as yesterday, Alya would celebrate and start making predictions on how cute Marinette's and Adrien's child will be. She had made Marinette swear that Alya would be the child's godmother already despite Marinette insisting that it would probably never happen.

"Um, can I sit here?"

Marinette snapped out of her thoughts, her gaze immediately snapping over to look at the source of the voice.

Nathaniel stood at the edge of the table, his trademark sketchbook clutched to his chest. He watched at Marinette nervously, his pen fidgeting in his hand. Any other time, Marinette would have thought him to be adorable.

"A-Ah," Marinette started awkwardly. She silently cursed herself as well as Nathaniel. She didn't expect anyone other than Adrien to ask to sit next to her. She'd completely forgotten about Nathaniel after yesterday; Adrien had completely driven her worries about the artist out of her mind.

"I can sit somewhere else if you want to," Nathaniel quickly said. Was it her imagination or was he blushing?

"Oh no, it's okay," Marinette said quickly, her mouth moving before her mind registered what she was saying. As soon as the words left her lips, she regretted them, but it was too late to take them back. "It's fine."

Nathaniel gave a shy smile as he laid his shoulder bag on the floor next to the stool before taking a seat. "Thanks."

Alya was so going to kill her.

"I'm going to go get our pieces," Nathaniel offered, standing again. He left his sketchbook on the corner of the table, along with his pen.

"Oh, um, sure," Marinette said, but he was already starting to walk away towards their class shelf.

Since students usually couldn't finish pieces within a class period, Ms. Ro had shown them their class shelf where their pieces were to be stored until next class time. They were white wire shelves, about five shelves high, lined against one corner of the room. There was one for each class, about five in total. Ms. Ro had shown them how to carefully place their pieces on a wooden board before wrapping them in a plastic bag. She'd also shown them how to spray the plastic instead of their pieces when keeping their pieces dry (unless they were trying to dry out their pieces) because spraying water directly on their pieces wasn't really the best idea since drier pieces had a habit of falling apart at the sudden moisture.

Marinette frowned. Even if the bags were clear, it was hard to tell whose pieces were whose. Some students had written their names on the bags but that was hardly useful unless they wrapped it in a certain way that displayed their names. Besides, Marinette hadn't bothered with the whole name labeling.

She was just starting to stand to retrieve her piece herself when she noticed Nathaniel reaching for her piece already. Puzzled, she watched as he carefully picked up her wooden board with her wrapped piece on top of it from the rest of the pieces on the self without hesitation before reaching for his own piece on a higher shelf. Carefully making his way back to the table, the boy met Marinette's gaze curiously.

"What?"

"Huh?"

"You were staring…?" He placed her board on the table in front of her before taking a seat. He unwrapped his piece. To Marinette's surprise, his stamp was nearly finished as well. Even Adrien (as well as most of the class) was still struggling with their pieces.

Nathaniel's stamp resembled an ink bottle, cork and all. That normally wouldn't have been too hard to make, but what impressed Marinette was that it was hollow. Even the cork was separate from the clay container. Nathaniel's name was carved into one side of the clay bottle in fancy script.

"Oh, um, I didn't know that you knew where my piece was," Marinette explained. This time, she was certain that the boy blushed.

"I-I happened to notice you putting it on the shelf last time," he murmured. He was suddenly _very_ interested in his stamp. "You put your piece on the shelf right before I did."

"I see." Marinette gave him one final curious look before shrugging it off. She turned to her own piece and unwrapped it.

Nathaniel's piece may have been nice but hers was something she was rather proud of. It was a miniature tree, similar to one that she had played in a game before. The tree was simple and she had chosen it because of its simplicity. The game, which was something of a town mayor simulation, had featured trees whose foliage formed circular bundles of leaves with a fruit on each bundle. Her town in the game had apples as a native fruit so, staying true to her town, her ceramic tree featured three round red apples. She had painstakingly carved each tiny detail into her tree with a metal tool that resembled an ice pick which she had later learned was called the "needle tool." When that wasn't precise enough, she used one of her own needles from her sewing kit.

"Marinette!"

She turned, already recognizing the voice. Nino grinned awkwardly at her, Adrien trailing behind him.

"I see you've taken over the table," Nino joked. He eyed her meaningfully. "You wanna switch seats with me today too?"

"A-Ah, sorry about that!" Marinette turned pink. Behind Nino, Adrien frowned but stayed silent. "I-I mean, do you want to switch—"

"I need to talk to Marinette about something today," interrupted Nathaniel. He eyed Nino through his bangs, his gaze unwavering, albeit a little uncomfortable. Nino, along with Marinette and Adrien, looked at him in surprise. Marinette's heart skipped a beat. All of a sudden, her worries about Nathaniel finding out her secret came back to her in a rush.

"Oh," Nino said, uncertainly glancing at Marinette. "Um…"

"It's fine," said Adrien with his usual smile. He placed a hand on Nino's shoulder. "Let's go grab a table before the rest of the class arrives."

Nino turned, his face sullen. "Listen, man, I'm just trying to not get killed."

That makes two of us, thought Marinette dryly.

Adrien, however, only frowned in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Nino sighed. He gave one last look at Marinette before shaking his head. "Sure, let's go. See you later, Marinette."

"Er, sure. See you later." But Adrien was already leading Nino away. As soon as they were out earshot, Nathaniel turned to Marinette.

"Sorry..." he said sheepishly. He didn't meet her eyes. "I do need to talk to you, though."

"R-Really? Is something wrong?" Marinette forced out a smile.

Nathaniel, obviously noticing her discomfort, hesitated. "It's nothing bad," he assured her quietly. Her stomach sank.

"What do you mean? Something bad? Of course, nothing could be bad," Marinette laughed awkwardly. Her hands had clenched into fists tightly. "What could be bad?"

"I mean," Nathaniel hesitated again. He seemed unsure of how to go about this. "I don't think it's bad...being Ladybug and all," he all but mumbled to his shoes. His ears were bright red and he didn't look at her.

Marinette said nothing. Or, rather, she was unable to say anything for a good few seconds as her heart twisted into a knot. She hadn't expected him to be so blunt about it, let alone telling her so suddenly in class. She forced out a laugh.

"W-What are you talking about?" Her voice didn't sound convincing even to herself. She carefully kept her voice low. "That's impossible, you must have the wrong person. Yeah. That's it."

"I won't tell anyone," Nathaniel said quickly. He too kept his voice low, as well as his gaze. In fact, he seemed to be looking everywhere but at her. "I wouldn't do that to you."

"Nathaniel, you have the wrong person. I'm not—"

"Good morning, everyone." Ms. Ro rose from her seat, a napkin held to her mouth, dabbing at her lips. The class dutifully answered. Nathaniel seemed to sigh but turned to face the front of the class. Grateful for the interruption, Marinette followed suit.

 **Author's Note:**

 **It's 1 AM at the time of writing and I have work early tomorrow so I'm sorry if this chapter sounds off/unnatural. I couldn't fall asleep without putting an explanation out along with a chapter first. I'll revise within a few days.**

 **I'm sorry about everyone who thought the previous note was true. I think the note was a little more obvious for this story than my other one but the full explanation and apology is in my other Miraculous story** ** _A Minute Until Midnight_** **. To clarify, the previous note was an April Fool's joke. The reviews here were generally less guilt-inducing than from my other story but nevertheless, I apologize.**

 **I just wanted to celebrate the holiday and my anniversary the only way I knew how. I won't do it again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.**


	7. Chapter 6

"When working with clay, you cannot just attach two pieces together and expect them to stick. Doing this," Ms. Ro, holding two balls of clay in her hand, pressed the pieces together before continuing, "will not make them stick. They'll pop off after firing, even if you smooth out the edges and make it look nice. Nathaniel, can you tell me how to properly attach two pieces of clay together?"

Nathaniel hesitated. Next to him, Marinette shifted in her seat, her face slightly turned away from the boy. Instead, she focused on one of the many dusty ceramic posters on the room wall, her heart beating quickly. It was during times like these that she regretted choosing to tie her hair; it was much harder to casually shield your face from others without a convenient curtain of hair.

"By scoring and slipping," Nathaniel said quietly. He too looked uncomfortable. He'd unwittingly become the teacher's favorite which seemed to both flattered and terrified him at the same time.

"Very good, Nathaniel," Ms. Ro said approvingly. "Slip is liquid clay. We keep them in containers on the wedging table, over there."

Ms. Ro gestured to the larger of the two wedging tables. Out of the two wedging tables, only one of which was meant for "normal" clay, as the class quickly found out the other day after Ms. Ro's panicked shouts when a few students attempted to wedge at the smaller table. According to Ms. Ro, the smaller (and slightly cleaner looking) wedging table was strictly only for porcelain. Porcelain, a pure white clay, was more expensive and slightly harder to work with for beginners. Mixing it with any other clay would easily ruin the whole batch, hence the separate wedging tables.

As Marinette looked, however, she noticed some new additions to the wedging tables since the other day. On each of the wedging tables, next to the plaster, were a couple of knee-high two-gallon buckets which were surrounded by nearly a dozen small plastic containers, each roughly about the same size as a standard one portion yogurt container, some of which had a metal handle encrusted with clay sticking out. Most of these containers were of a translucent plastic, revealing what looked like mud within each of them. The ones that sat on the porcelain table were white while the ones on the larger wedging table were a shade of gray identical to the clay the class has been working with. Ms. Ro held one of these small containers up.

"This," Ms. Ro began, "is slip. It's just like the clay you're using but it's been mixed with a lot more water. Slip is used for a lot of things but we'll just be using them for attaching pieces in this class."

Setting down the container again, she peeled apart the two balls of clay before setting one piece down and picking up a needle tool from a nearby table's tool holder. She began running the tip of the tool across the surface of the clay, creating long, deep cuts into the side of the clay. As the teacher did so, Marinette noticed Nathaniel watching intently. Instead of the normal slouch that he did during class, he sat at attention and even slightly leaned forward in his seat with his whole body turned towards the older woman.

If it weren't for the circumstances, Marinette would have almost found his newfound passion endearing.

Almost.

"This is called 'scoring' in ceramics," Ms. Ro explained as she quickly finished. Satisfied with her work, she held up the piece of clay to the class, showing off crisscrossing cuts covering one whole side of the clay. Setting it down, she picked up the other piece and began doing the same with the other side. "When attaching two pieces, you must score both pieces you want to attach. For small pieces, we usually use a small tool. For big pieces, we can use forks. There are forks in some of the slip containers. After scoring both sides, spread slip on both sides of the pieces and press them together."

Ms. Ro, using the clay encrusted fork from the slip container from before, spread on a generous coating of slip onto the scored piece of clay. After doing the same to the other piece, she returned the fork to the slip container and firmly pressed the slipped covered sides together for a few seconds before wiping away the excess slip and held the joined pieces up.

"After sticking them together, hold it there for a little bit to make sure it joins properly. Then you can smooth out the sides and make it look seamless. Like this." Ms. Ro held up her example. "You'll want to smooth out the sides with a tool or a dry finger, not a wet one. Stamps should be completed by next class. You can get started now."

Ms. Ro was already starting to make her way back to her desk as she finished speaking, and Marinette couldn't help but feel slightly unguided, but she quickly shrugged off the feeling. She preferred minimal explanations anyway.

Nathaniel turned to face forward again, having adjusted to face the teacher during the demonstration, and gingerly removed his clay piece off of the wooden board from which it rested on. Marinette followed his example. Both kept their eyes on their pieces, carefully avoiding the face of the other and unwilling to be the first to speak. Around them, the class rose to a light chatter, oblivious to the pair's tension.

To put it simply, it was uncomfortably awkward for both of them.

Now that her mind was no longer paying attention to Ms. Ro's words, not that she managed to completely pay attention, she was back to worrying about Nathaniel. Yes, she had worried about him the other day when he had first hinted of knowing she was Ladybug and that had slightly prepared her for the news. It did take off most of initial the nerves on the matter and all that was left was damage control and awkwardness.

How to go about the damage control was the question.

She silently drew a steady breath in an attempt to return to a more stable heart rate. It worked to some extent; now that the initial fear of being discovered was gone only an uneasiness remained.

A frown on her face, she absentmindedly picked up her piece by the trunk, her fingers testing the level of moisture in the clay. It hadn't dried at all thanks to her paranoia of it drying out completely while wrapping her piece the day before. In fact, it had probably gotten wetter.

"Marinette?"

She ignored him, instead choosing to intently study the base of her stamp which was still left untouched for the most part. Truth be told, she didn't know how to face him or what to even say. It had never crossed her mind that a classmate would figure out her secret first. If anyone, she expected Chat to be the first to know her identity. At least for him, she knew him well enough to have an idea of how to react.

Nathaniel tried again, his voice just a little louder than his initial attempt. When this too was ignored, he sighed, a trace of uncharacteristic impatience in the sound.

It was after his third attempt did he seem to give up. A noisy scrapping of the tools against the table told Marinette that he'd picked out a few to start working with on his own piece. Still, she kept her eyes solely on her small clay tree as she mentally mapped out her plan for her piece. A small part of her knew that what she was doing was wrong; ignoring him would probably only make matters worse. But at the same time, she was afraid. As Evillustrator, Nathaniel was quick to turn on her once she betrayed him in order to help Chat. Even she hadn't expected him to try and drown her as a result of that betrayal, which showed that the artist wasn't exactly as passive as he usually appeared. It was strange, thinking of Nathaniel as the unpredictable type, but she didn't know him well enough to know how he would react, or what his intentions were. For all she knew, he could be pretending to be nice and really planning on blackmailing her with this newfound knowledge. Either way, she wasn't particularly looking forward to a confrontation.

Given the time length, she would have to finish most of the stamp base by the end of class to be able to officially call the piece a stamp. It would be a welcome hand busying task; at least it would make the class pass faster. She'd be sure to accept Nino's offer to switch seats with her tomorrow.

When she was sure that Nathaniel was done taking his pick of tools for the day from the ceramic tool holder judging by the lack of noise, she reached over to pick out some as well.

Only for her hand to find...nothing.

Confused by why her hand touched nothing but empty air where the tools had been moments ago, Marinette finally looked up.

Sitting on the far end of the table within easy reach of Nathaniel was the tool holder. The patterned ceramic cylinder was pushed as far as possible away from Marinette, along with the spray bottle. Nathaniel continued carving his stamp design into the base of his piece while Marinette watched in disbelief. She wasn't sure if she'd imagined it, but she could have sworn the corners of his mouth were ever so slightly turned upright.

She frowned. Definitely not the nice, quiet passive artist she had first thought of him as.

Slightly annoyed, she reached across the table, having to slightly rise from her seat to do so. Her arm brushed against Nathaniel as he continued to innocently work, refusing to even lean away from her as she reached across him.

Pulling the tool holder towards her, she began digging into the half dozen or so tools within only to find every pointed tool, needle tool and the likes, missing. Looking over at her seemingly work focused table partner, she could just make out the handles of the missing tools on the other side of Nathaniel. Untouched and unused, it was clear that he didn't have any intention of using them anytime soon.

Marinette gritted her teeth, annoyance now very clear on her face. She wasn't sure when Nathaniel grew a pair but at this rate, they'll be gone by the end of the week. That is if she didn't strangle him first.

Strangely, being angry at Nathaniel calmed her worrying much better than any breathing exercise or talks from Tikki had ever done. She was just beginning to plot his demise when she noticed the hint of the beginnings of a smug smirk on her classmate's face.

Cheeky bastard.

She took another breath, this time to calm her annoyance. Refusing to play into his expectations, she reached down to her backpack and dug out her compact sewing kit from which she picked out one of the larger needles, one of which still had a trace of clay from yesterday and began the painstakingly slow task of carving the inverted outlines of her initials onto her stamp base with the much smaller needle.

From the corner of her eye, she noticed Nathaniel give a disappointed frown but neither said a word. This continued for most of the class. Marinette was just finishing up carving the outlines of the letter M when a familiar voice interrupted her thoughts.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Another thing is, do y'all think this is too much ceramic stuff/terms/description? This story has a side goal of teaching about ceramics (and ceramic classes usually have a** _ **lot**_ **more lecturing in the beginning than this) but if a lot of people think that it's too much or it's boring, I'll rein it in a little.**

 **Also, I had just written up a 4pg essay on children TV shows for my sociology class on 2 hours of sleep. I really should not have binge rewatched Star Vs The Forces of Evil, Miraculous, and Gravity Fall, and should really be sleeping but I really wanted to get a chapter out so… Sorry if this chapter sounds off since I need to turn off soon. Thank you for reading and reviewing.**


	8. Chapter 7

**Ceramics fact(?): _Generally_ , one way you can get an idea of how skilled someone is in ceramics by looking at how thick their piece is. Of course, some people deliberately make their pieces thick but if a small simple bowl is ridiculously bumpy and looks like you can drop it and easily break every bone in your foot and then some, then the person is probably a beginner.**

* * *

"Marinette?"

Both Nathaniel and Marinette turned at the voice. Nathaniel, with a frown, and Marinette, with a blush.

Adrien stood with a sheepish smile next to the table. "I'm having trouble with my piece and Nino suggested that I asked you for help."

"S-Sure! What do you need help with?" Marinette asked, her blush prominent on her face. It was easier talking to Adrien now after working sitting next to him yesterday but it still wasn't completely easy. She was also very aware of the passive glare that Nathaniel was giving Adrien. If Adrien noticed either of these, he didn't show it.

"I want to add whiskers to my cat stamp but I can't get the strands to stick out properly without them falling off," Adrien admitted.

"You can't. They'll fall off without support," Nathaniel interjected before turning away to work on his piece again. Marinette was vaguely reminded of a child throwing a tantrum.

"You can try carving the whiskers into it instead," Marinette suggested, her eyebrows pulled together thoughtfully. "With the needle tool or something. Or attach the whole whisker to the face instead of it sticking out."

Adrien beamed. "That's a great idea, Marinette. Can you show me?" Then he paused. "If you're not too busy of course. Are you done talking to Nathaniel?"

"Y-Yes!" Marinette replied the same time Nathaniel muttered, "No."

"Uh…"

"I am," Marinette said firmly, shooting Nathaniel an annoyed look as she did so. The boy kept his gaze averted. "I can finish talking to Nathaniel _later_."

"Is that so…" Adrien looked confused at the exchange but quickly recovered with a smile. "Nino was really adamant that I asked you for help the whole first half of class."

"I can't blame him," Marinette laughed. At least now Nino wouldn't get completely murdered by Alya.

Adrien frowned. "Why?"

Marinette, realizing her mistake, quickly backtracked. "Er, because I told him he could ask me for help anytime during class yesterday! I really, really wanted to help him with his piece."

"But...you sat with me yesterday. I don't remember—"

"Did I say during class? I meant over text."

This only further confused Adrien. "Since when did you get so friendly with Nino?"

"Annnnd let's go take a look at your piece!" Marinette stood up abruptly, her hands nearly knocking over her own piece in the movement. This, of course, went unnoticed by the girl.

"Sure," Adrien said. He led the way to his table where Nino sat waiting, worry on his face. Once he noticed the pair approach him, his worried look changed to one of relief.

The boys' stamps were...average. Even Marinette who hadn't worked with ceramics long could tell. Bulky and crude in shape, both stamps were obviously done uncertainly. Their pieces still sat on their own boards and the plastic that was used to wrap their pieces were shoved to the side. Nino's stamp was a standard cube with various music designs roughly engraved upon each side. She could just make out his name etched on the top with what looked like the needle tool if the tool in his hand was anything to go by.

Slightly more creative than his friend, Adrien had chosen to make a cat's head, much to Marinette's surprise. It was a really simple piece, only a touch more creative than Nino's. Adrien had made a sphere with a flat side for the bottom and shaped cat ears on top. She hadn't taken him for a cat person but when she asked if he had a cat, he'd simply replied with, "Kind of."

"Marinette," Nino greeted with a knowing grin. "Here to help Adrien?"

"Yeah," Marinette replied, an eyebrow raised ever so slightly. "Apparently my help was highly recommended."

"Was it? I wonder why," Nino said in the same tone. Adrien, who had been feeling left out of what he suspected to an inside joke, finally spoke.

"Well, if you can help me, that'd be great," the boy hinted. He flashed a smile at Marinette as he gestured to his piece, a smile that effectively blanked out her thoughts for a good second before she quickly snapped back to reality.

"A-Ah, of course! So you wanted to add ears, right?"

Nino unsuccessfully hid his laugh with a snort.

"Er, whiskers, actually. I think two ears are enough," Adrien said amusedly.

Marinette flushed. "O-Oh. Yeah. That's what I meant. Umm, so you can try carving it into the face or you can try attaching the whole whiskers onto the head. Attaching just the ends so that they stick out will be really hard…"

Adrien studied his piece critically. "Which do you think is better?"

"Carving is a lot easier than attaching…"

"But," Nino interjected. "Attaching them will take more time, right?"

Marinette turned her gaze to the other boy, her eyes wary. She had an inkling of where this was going. "Yeah."

Nino spread his hands invitingly, the dried clay stuck to his skin cracking falling off upon the movement. Marinette's eyes followed the movement, a crease in her brow already forming. Unaware of her disapproving stare, the boy continued, causing more clay to crumble and fall from his hands. "Then let's do that. I'm sure Adrien here will have more questions eventually and you can probably teach us stuff."

Picking up the spray bottle from the table, Marinette automatically reached over and grabbed Nino's hands, much to the boy's surprise. She wore a frown on her face as she gave his hands a few spritzes of water.

"I don't mind helping, but are you trying to kill us? Keep your hands moist," Marinette scolded. It was then that she took a closer notice of the table. Dried clay stuck to the table in various places and the couple tools that laid between the two boys had pieces of dried clay stuck to them. It looked like they smeared clay everywhere and left them to dry. She sprayed those as well.

Satisfied that she had neutralized the danger, she nodded to herself.

"Because of the dust thing?" Adrien asked. He had a frown on his own face now as well. He and Nino hadn't taken Ms. Ro's warning to heart, obviously.

Marinette turned. "Yeah. I prefer my lungs to leave this class undamaged."

Wordlessly, Adrien held up his own clay-crusted hands, a sheepish smile on his face. The movement alone caused a large portion of the clay to crack and fall off from his skin.

Marinette shook her head in mock disappointment.

"You two would have been the death of each other," Marinette muttered. Then, before she could really think about what she was doing, she gently took the model's hand by the wrist and brought it palm up in front of her and sprayed it before doing the same to the other hand.

Surprised by her own actions, she immediately turned red. Adrien, however, didn't notice as he rubbed his hands to spread the water. Nino gave a wide grin.

"See? We need you here, Marinette," Nino said, rubbing his own hands. "We'll pull up a stool for you."

"But what about Nathaniel? Shouldn't you go back to him?" Adrien asked with concern. He was surprised to see both Nino and Marinette pull the same face at the name.

"Dude, just accept her help," Nino said, almost desperately, the same time Marinette flatly replied, "He'll survive."

Confused, Adrien looked at both of them. "Did you two get into a fight with him?"

Marinette stayed silent but Nino shook his head.

"Nah, man. He's cool. I just want Marinette here."

Not any less confused, Adrien let the matter drop. "Well, let me go find you a stool then."

"I got it," Marinette replied. She set down the spray bottle and turned to pull a stool up from a nearby table. The two sat down, Marinette sitting directly on the left of Adrien, at the edge of the table. She cringed at the small creek that the seat gave and not for the first time, wondered just how old these stools were.

She noticed that she had unconsciously set her stool down just far enough from Adrien to be considered at an awkward distance. It was at the same moment that it occurred to her that she'd actually have to sit _next_ to the model, a realization that was enough to make her blush again.

As she scooted closer to the table, Adrien paused before standing up. For a second, she was terrified that he was about to move his seat away from her in some weird show of avoidance (she hadn't disgusted him that much, had he?) but instead, he nudged his stool towards her.

"Here, switch stools with me."

Her brows furrowed in confusion. "Why...?"

Smiling, he gestured at her stool. "It's bothering you, right? Your stool, I mean."

"I—Oh. Y-You don't have to," she said in surprise. He chuckled.

"I don't mind. You had the bad stool yesterday too. You kept shifting in your seat. I'll feel bad if you get a bad one again today."

She blushed. Truthfully, she had shifted so much mainly because she had hoped that she could use the tipping of the chair to naturally brush against his arm while working but quickly tipped away again when she lost courage only to try again a few minutes later. She hadn't thought that he'd noticed, him having been focused on his stamp when they weren't talking. Or, in her case, stammering occasional incoherent replies to misheard questions.

"Um, okay. Thanks," she mumbled, giving him her best impression of a grateful smile. It felt more like a grimace than anything else.

After exchanging stools, Adrien picked up his piece in one hand and a needle tool in the other. He kept the metal tool poised over the face of the cat as Marinette subtly scooted as close as she could as his personal space would allow. It was just close enough that she could catch the faintest whiff of his smell, something of a mix of spearmint, earth, and surprisingly, a hint of camembert. The spearmint and earth were from a shampoo that he had modeled for recently but the camembert puzzled her. Did he have cheese for breakfast?

"Should I mark where I want it first?" Adrien asked, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"I guess," Marinette replied. Her voice came out partly as a squeak.

He scored three lines, one each side of his clay cat's face. Then, picking up a scrap piece of clay that had been tossed to the side of the table, began rolling thin strands of clay.

"So, have you done ceramics before? You seem pretty good at it," Nino commented. He was scraping away at his own stamp with a tool, one that ended in a small metal hook.

Marinette shook her head, despite neither of the boys looking at her. "I've only worked with polymer clay before."

"What's polymer clay?" Adrien asked curiously. He glanced sideways at her, pausing his work.

"Er, it's like clay."

Adrien raised an eyebrow in amusement at the statement. "Really."

She mentally kicked herself, her face growing pink once again. "I-It's like colorful clay. It's a little different from this kind of clay. It's...more like playdough. Kinda. Yeah."

"What's it for?" Thankfully, Adrien turned away from her again to continue working on his cat whiskers. She let out a breath.

"For decoration, mostly. Some people make charms with them," Marinette spoke quicker now as she mentally went down the list of things she remembered about the clay. "A lot of people bake it afterward in their ovens to harden them when done. Some people even sell them online on websites. Since you don't have to worry too much about moisture and connecting it properly, it's easy for beginners to use."

"Charms?"

Marinette nodded enthusiastically, a smile growing on her face. "Yeah. You can turn them into earrings, necklaces, keychains, and lots of other stuff so it's really useful. I was really into making accessories a few years ago and made a lot of fandom charm requests for a lot of classmates."

"Oh, I remember!" Nino said suddenly, abruptly stopping his work and accidentally carving out a bit too much off one side of his piece. He didn't seem to notice, however. "You made me a stereo keychain! Dude, I still have it attached to my old bag!"

Adrien, once again, looked at Marinette in curiously. "Can you make anything?"

Surprised at the sudden interest, Marinette was caught off guard. "Well, probably not _anything_ …"

"But you're good at it, right?" Adrien pressed.

"I guess…"

Adrien's eyes lit up. "Can you make me a Ladybug charm?"

"A...Ladybug charm?" Marinette said slowly. Was her other identity going to be an everyday subject now? Not that it wasn't a popular topic of conversation already, especially after an akuma attack. But that was to be expected and even welcome at times. It was nice hearing praise for her counterpart every now and then, even if they weren't meant to be directed at _her_.

But at the mention of Ladybug, she was suddenly reminded of a certain identity problem brought up by a certain artist who had been sneaking glances at her from across the room. She scowled slightly at the thought. This could have been a really nice day if it weren't for that.

Misinterpreting her scowl, Adrien hastily said, "I mean, only if it's not too much trouble, of course. I don't want to be a bother."

Marinette started, surprise on her face. Realizing what had happened, she quickly replied with a hasty smile, "O-Oh, no, it's not a problem at all! I was just thinking about, um, something. I can make one for you! Anything for you!"

"Anything?" Adrien asked, confused at the sudden mood shift. A small part of him started to doubt his social skills. Everything was so confusing recently; first Nino was acting strangely for no reason at all then Marinette started acting even stranger than usual around him. Was it something he did? Sure, he knew that he was a tiny bit dense sometimes but this was ridiculous. He made a mental note to himself to work on brushing up on his social skills later.

"Anything you want, I mean," Marinette amended. She cursed herself for letting her tongue slip again. She'd have to work with Alya on that habit around Adrien some more.

"Well...A simple charm would be nice," Adrien said, his model smile on his face once again. Then he added, "Only if you have time for it."

"I have time!" Marinette said eagerly, her voice rising slightly in pitch. A chance to make something for Adrien, something that Adrien would _wear_ no less. She would have kept on fawning over the opportunity if it weren't for Nino loudly clearing his throat. He rolled his eyes at Marinette.

"Oh, uh, thanks then." Adrien, the poor confused child, once again looked at Marinette strangely. Dimly, he wondered if the girl was just really, really enthusiastic about making charms. It would certainly explain her knack for clay. "Well, now that that's settled, can you show me how to attach these whiskers on?"

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Some of you readers have come from my other ML fanfic,** _ **A Minute Until Midnight**_ **(or vice versa) and so far I've been trying to keep the number of chapters the same by updating that one before updating this story…BUT after reviewing statistics,** _ **Ceramics Class**_ **has been the slightly more popular story of the two in both favorites and follows so from now on, I am updating one chapter for that story for every two chapters for Ceramics Class!**

 **I look at every email alert for new follows/favorites and I noticed a lot of readers initially come from that story or go from this one to that one so this note is just a heads up to them. I'll do one chapter for my other chapter next though just because it's nearing the first climax.**

* * *

 **izzy - Thank you!**

 **Obsidiandragon182005 - Ahh thanks! I'm glad there's another ceramics lover here :)**

 **sweet XD melody - This chapter should have a bit of** **adrinette moments :**

 **Swirlspot - Aww, thanks! Haha, I'm just the type of reader whose eyes glaze over long descriptive paragraphs so I was wondering if it was the same for others. Ceramic classes are great! I recommend finding a friend to take it with though, it makes it a lot more fun!**

 **FicsFromAnAnbuNin - You guessed right! Thank you for reading so many of my stories :)**

 **StayAliveReprise - Thank you! Also, is your name a reference to Hamilton? That song made me tear up ;_;**

 **ladybug02 - Thank you for reading! Essays are a pain .**

 **ChishioShakun - Thank you! I've tried to keep your suggestion in mind for this chapter! :)**

 **mayuralover - Yeah, I'm surprised it's not a more widespread elective choice!**

 **Missdragongirl - Thank you! I'm glad you like my story :)**

 **AngelPie2015** **\- Thank you! I'll try to balance it little :)**


	9. Chapter 8

Alya was staring at her.

She didn't have to take a glance to her left to know. She could _feel_ the grin radiating off of her friend, the same grin that Alya had been wearing ever since lunch after Marinette reported on what had happened during ceramics. Any minute now the bell that signaled the end of class would ring and she'd be at the complete mercy of her friend. Thank goodness Adrien sat in front of the pair rather than behind where he could see what was going on; even he couldn't be dense enough to not piece things together and figure out something was up.

But then again, that boy was practically the very definition of the word. Alya had joked once that if they opened up a dictionary, the definition for "dense" might as well be a picture of his face and, to be honest, Marinette couldn't really argue with that. Alya had also later added that if such a dictionary existed, Marinette's face would be the first thing you would see when looking up the definition of "klutz." Said face would also be the definition of "scatterbrain-in-the-presence-of-Adrien," nevermind that it wasn't an actual word. A made-up dictionary might as well have a made-up word to go along with it, Alya had replied easily.

So when the bell finally did ring and Ms. Bustier had excused them for the day, Alya was practically bouncing in her seat as Nino and Adrien bid the two girls goodbye for the day, the latter only giving the girl's excited state a brief second glance before quickly making his way out the room. Because of Adrien's schedule, the model was usually forced to leave school as soon as the bell rang in order to make it in time for fencing lessons, and Nino often walked his friend out.

"I'm so proud of you!" Alya gushed, hugging Marinette.

Marinette laughed, pushing her friend off. "You told me that a million times already."

"Girl, this is the most progress you've had by far. Ooh, we have to celebrate! How about we go to that new cafe that opened up the other week?" Alya asked, rising from her seat. To her surprise, Marinette shook her head apologetically.

"Sorry, I can't. I have to finish something for ceramics."

"Ceramics?" Alya echoed. "You haven't finished?"

"I was distracted by a certain someone," Marinette said with a roll of her eyes. "I'm almost done but you should go on without me."

Alya pouted. "And miss out on all the gossiping we could be doing?"

Marinette laughed, standing up as well. She slung her backpack over her shoulder. "What gossip is there to do?"

"There's _always_ gossip if you look hard enough," Alya said firmly. She managed to keep a straight face for about a split second before grinning again. "I'll come with you. I've always been curious about what's all this interest in mud."

"Clay," Marinette corrected.

"Whatever. It's basically the same thing, right?"

"I mean…I don't know," Marinette admitted. "But it can get messy and it'll probably be really boring…"

"Well, it's a good thing that I enjoy your company more than any mud play. Besides, you're not going to get out of talking about Adrien that easily. There's no escape from interrogation," Alya teased, poking Marinette in the shoulder as they walked out the room. "Where is the ceramics room anyways? The art wing?"

"Yeah, on the ground floor," Marinette confirmed, leading the way. The two girls walked through the hallways, weaving through the crowds of students hurrying to get home. Although there were many clubs, most weren't on a Thursday and posters weren't allowed in the hallways so advertisements for clubs weren't even very common. As a result, the art wing was nearly empty when the girls arrived. Music could be heard from afterschool practices and a few students stood by their lockers, stuffing away the last of their project materials. As they ventured further into the hallway, fewer and fewer students could be seen. The only ones who remained were those clearly passionate about art or staying behind to catch up on a missed project.

"I know I asked this already, but _where_ is it?" Alya asked, a trace of disbelief in her voice. She eyed one of the half-open lockers they passed by. The owner of the locker, a girl their age who had bent down to pick up her dropped pens, had left the locker door open wide enough for them to see a collection of old doll heads inside, neatly crammed on top of a box of lightbulbs. They had already passed the drawing, architecture, 3D art, and painting room. Only the choir room remained at the end of the hall as far as Alya knew.

"It's at the very end, next to the exit," Marinette explained as they turned the corner, finally coming into the view of double doors, each with a glass window allowing a view into the room. The only indication of the room's purpose was a small black room plaque, no bigger than an index card, that read "S01 Ceramics".

Marinette pulled open one of the doors, sticking her head in cautiously.

Ms. Ro sat on the other end of the room at her desk, typing away on her computer. Unlike class time, all of the stools were neatly stacked on top of the work tables. Neat is a relative term, of course. In the ceramics room, space was only cleared as necessary. She was sure that if the floor itself wasn't required for walking upon, it too would be filled with various papers, boxes, tools, and ceramic projects long abandoned by their owners.

It wasn't only the main room that was messy; the back room where the sinks were located was as equally cluttered, if not more.

When Marinette had first entered the back room on her first day, she'd been taken back by just how many things were there. To the right was a large sink area with about five faucets, each with a bucket underneath to catch clay. Next to the sink was a door which led outside. On the left wall were two separate doors to two different kiln rooms and past those doors was a restroom. She'd heard from classmates that there was another door next to the bathroom which was Ms. Ro's private room, but since she'd never explored anywhere past the sink, she had never seen it for herself. Every spot within the room that could be filled with things were filled with carts, cabinets, paint bottles, boxes upon boxes of dusty glazed pieces, and just various art projects and materials in general.

"Ms. Ro?" Marinette called out. When the teacher didn't respond, she tried again.

"Um, Ms. Ro?"

Ms. Ro turned, looking at Marinette with slight surprise. "Oh, hello, Marinette." The woman's face quickly changed from one of slight surprise to a pleasant smile.

"I was wondering if I can work on my piece? Are you staying for a little while?" Marinette pushed open the door just a little more. Alya peered over the girl's shoulder into the room.

"I'll be staying for, hm...an hour or two. Who's your friend?" The woman smiled, the edges of her eyes crinkling.

"This is Alya," Marinette introduced, a smile slipping onto her own face as she held the door open wider, allowing the other girl to step in as well. "Can she stay here too?"

"I don't mind."

"Thank you," Marinette said with a slight incline of her head. She pulled the stools off of the nearest table, setting her backpack down as she did so. Alya followed her. From the corner of her eye, Marinette noticed the girl curiously looking at the room before sitting down. With an amused smile, she watched as Alya lift the tool holder, jumping as the tools all clattered on the table.

"What the hel—ck?" Alya said in surprise, automatically correcting herself. "Where's the bottom?"

Marinette giggled. "That was my reaction too. They're made without bottoms."

" _Why_?" Alya asked incredulously as she gathered the fallen tools and replaced them. Some of the tools, she twirled in her hand curiously before putting them back.

"It makes them easier to clean," Marinette explained. "I'll go get my piece. Wait here."

"Oooh, what are you making?" Alya turned in her seat, following Marinette with her eyes.

"A stamp with my initials," Marinette replied, studying the wrapped pieces on her class shelf critically. With all the pieces wrapped, it could be somewhat hard to tell whose was whose, forcing most students to memorize where exactly they had placed their own piece. Spotting her own among others on one of the lower shelves, she carefully picked it up without touching any other wrapped pieces.

"Is that a wooden board?" Alya asked as Marinette returned and sat down.

"Yeah, we keep our pieces on boards so that they'll be easier to carry. It's also easier for a piece to get damaged if we just wrap them and toss them onto the shelf," Marinette said as she unwrapped her stamp. To her relief, thanks to her deliberately wrapping the plastic just a tad looser than yesterday, the stamp had hardened throughout the day and was perfect for carving.

"You made that? Dang girl," Alya said, impressed. "Is that a tree from that game you started playing a while ago?"

"Yep. I'm surprised you recognized it. No one I know has heard of this game before so you're the first person to recognize where it's from."

Alya snorted. "What kind of best friend would I be if I didn't know what games you like to play? Give me some credit," she said, poking her friend in the ribs.

Marinette laughed. "Sorry, sorry. I thought games aren't your thing. Can you pass me the needle tool?"

"The what?"

"The—nevermind, I got it." Marinette pulled out the familiar metal handle sticking out of the tool green glazed tool holder. It was the only tool with a metal handle; most of the tools had wooden handles instead. She began continuing her etching of the stamp bottom as Alya watched her with interest.

"Is it called the needle tool because it's basically a giant needle with a handle?"

"Yeah, it makes it easier to remember," Marinette replied, focusing on carving a jacob's ladder into the side of the stamp, just around her initials.

"So what's this called then, the knife tool?"

Marinette glanced over at her friend. Alya was inspecting another tool, one that resembled a butter knife. The light brown wooden handle contrasted sharply with the blade dark gray metal blade, lightly coated with just enough rust to give it a small red-brown color in parts of the blade. Although it was a knife, the "blade" was so dull that the only thing that it was capable of cutting was clay and the like. Even the tip was rounded so that any stabbing done with it would be just as effective as stabbing someone with a rounded stick.

"Yeah actually," Marinette chuckled. "We're very creative with names, obviously."

"I can tell," Alya said in the same tone. She grinned as she picked up another tool. "What about this one?"

She was holding a wooden handle tool now, a metal loop on each end. On one end was a normal metal loop, the other a somewhat square loop as if someone had taken a loop and flattened the end to make a flat side and two corners.

"I don't know," Marinette admitted.

"It's the ribbon tool," Ms. Ro said, her soft voice startling the two. Without either of them noticing, the older woman had approached their table.

"It makes ribbons when you use it," Ms. Ro explained. She picked up another tool from the holder. It was another wooden handled tool. Like most of the tools, there were two ends, one a straight flat metal triangle point and the other similar to the first but longer and curved into a pointed hook. She handed this to Marinette. "The refining tool is better for carving."

"Oh, um, thanks." Marinette took the tool, setting the needle tool down on the table. Absentmindedly, she recalled Nathaniel mentioning the tool's name earlier in the day but hadn't bothered to ask which tool he was talking about. "Why is it called the refining tool?"

"It's usually used for details. I thought it'd be useful since your stamp is much more detailed than most people's." Ms. Ro nodded towards the said stamp. "It's very nice."

Marinette flushed at the praise. "Thank you."

"Where's that other boy you sit next to?" Ms. Ro suddenly asked. Marinette frowned.

"Adrien?"

"Nathaniel," Ms. Ro corrected. "He's also talented at this, like you. Is he done with his stamp already?"

Marinette resisted the urge to pull a face at the name. For the teacher's sake, she kept a polite smile. "I don't know. I sat with Adrien today."

Next to her, Alya grinned.

"Why? Do you not like Nathaniel?" Ms. Ro asked. "Is Adrien the blond boy?"

"Yeah, Adrien's the blond one. He asked me for help today so I sat with him for half of the class," Marinette said. She wondered if it'd be rude to continue carving while talking. Was ceramic etiquette even a thing?

"Do you usually sit with Nathaniel?" Alya asked, speaking up for the first time since Ms. Ro joined them. Marinette glanced at Alya warily. She knew that her friend already knew the answer to that question.

"Well, it's usually two people to a table and Adrien already has Nino to sit with, so…"

Alya clapped her hands together and smiled appealingly at Ms. Ro. "Can Marinette join the two boys at their table? They're friends in class and the boys are really bad at ceramics so Marinette can help them."

Both Marinette and Ms. Ro looked at the teacher in surprise. Ms. Ro pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Well…"

"Pretty please? She'll probably motivate them to work harder" Alya flashed her best smile at the teacher. "and you know how boys can be."

For a few seconds, Ms. Ro frowned. Then, she slowly nodded. "I don't see why not."

"Thank you!" Alya said happily. "You won't regret this, promise!"

"Poor Nathaniel will be alone though," Ms. Ro said slowly.

"He'll be fine," Alya said dismissively. She nudged Marinette with her knee under the table. "Right, Marinette?"

"R-Right," Marinette agreed. A part of her wondered if Alya had always been so...influencing on adults. It was certainly a trait that would come in handy if her friend wanted to go into journalism. Then she smiled too. Now she wouldn't have to worry about Nathaniel as much. She didn't exactly look forward to sitting next to him again. It wasn't even that she had anything against the artist, but she wasn't sure if she could stop herself from giving him a good whack if the boy tried another one of his passive-aggressive tactics again, even if she did kind of deserve it.

Okay, she totally deserved it, if she was being honest with herself. Even she had to admit that. A growing part of her had begun to feel guilty about ignoring him but an even larger part of her was more than reluctant to ignore him. Maybe if she ignored him long enough, he'd start doubting himself. It was wishful thinking, sure, and Tikki had warned her about running away from her problems once, but that didn't mean she couldn't try. She ignored the small nagging feeling inside her.

"Hm. We'll see."

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Boring chapter, but it's necessary. This story started off based off events that happened in my life after all and sadly, I don't have a very exciting life. Oh well.**

 **Thank you for reading and reviewing! Sorry this chapter was late!**


	10. Chapter 9

"I'm home!" Marinette called out, stepping into the bakery. Her father looked up from the counter, a tray of freshly baked croissants in his hands.

"Welcome home, Mari! You came back a little later than usual today. Did you join a club?" He handed a croissant to her as she passed him with a smile.

"I had to stay after school to finish something for school," Marinette replied, biting into the pastry. "How was business today?"

Her dad shrugged. "The usual. Thursdays aren't that busy."

"I'm sure business will pick up tomorrow. Since it'll be Friday." She made a face. Celebrations almost always happened on Fridays. Either that or it was the one day people usually got a little loose with their wallet when it came to sweets, a habit that was great for business, but it also meant that she needed to stay home to help some weeks. "Do you want me to...?"

Her dad laughed as she left her question hanging. "We should be fine this week. No crazy office party this week."

She smiled in relief. As much as she didn't mind helping her parents out every once in a while, she did _not_ like juggling customers, rush orders, and custom orders all in the same day.

"Okay. I'm gonna go my room now," Marinette said before stuffing her mouth with the croissant.

Tom glanced over his shoulder at his daughter. He had already turned his main focus back onto the tray of croissants before him but now raised his eyebrow at Marinette's retreating back as she started making her way up the stairs.

"I'm sure you'd want to say hi to your friend at least."

"My...friend?" Marinette turned, her confusion evident on her face. The only friend who came over was usually Alya, and they had just parted ways a few minutes ago. "What friend?"

"A young man. He's sitting with your mom right now, actually."

Marinette's heart leaped for a moment. "Adrien?"

Tom laughed heartily. "I knew that would be your reaction. Sadly, no. It's another young man. Never seen him here before."

Her heart dropped and she groaned. If it was who she thought it was... "It's not...Nathaniel, is it?"

Tutting disapprovingly, he shook his head. "That's a rather rude reaction."

"You're _serious_?" She grimaced. Marinette knew that she couldn't run away from that particular problem forever, but she didn't think that he'd go to her _house_. And so soon? She knew that he only had a few chances to corner her: lunch, ceramics, and after school. By practically ignoring the boy during ceramics and running off with Alya during lunch and after class, she had minimized the chances he had. Sure, she planned on talking to him eventually (maybe) but she didn't expect that day to be _today_. How long had he even been waiting there?

"You should go talk to him. He seems like a nice kid. Welcome!" He greeted a customer enthusiastically, giving Marinette one last glance. Knowing that there would be no more running unless she wanted a long lecture about ditching her "friend" later that night, she trudged up the stairs.

* * *

Nathaniel fidgeted, his hands tightening around his mug of hot chocolate. He'd heard Marinette's interaction with her father downstairs and, judging by the slight frown on her face, so had Marinette's mother. The woman sat on the other side of the baby pink L-shaped sofa, her own cup of hot chocolate cradled in her hands. The two had been talking for the past hour or so. What started as a polite conversation as he waited had turned to one of new pastry designs for the bakery and various sketches laid on the sofa between them. Sabine smiled apologetically at Nathaniel.

"She's probably just tired. I'm sure she's not actually unhappy to see you," the woman said soothingly.

Nathaniel attempted to smile, but it came out more of a grimace. He'd expected this kind of reaction from the girl. He kind of felt bad. His visit was more of an impulse more than anything, really. But after seeing her all but run from him at school, he didn't really have a choice. If it was anyone else, he would have probably even dropped the matter altogether and went on with his life. And, to be fair, he'd tried that route. Twice. "It's okay."

Not even a few seconds after his reply, Marinette appeared at the top of the stairs, something of a cross between a grimace and scowl on her face. The expression was so downright uncharacteristic for the girl that he held his cup to his lips, hiding his amusement.

"Hi mom." Then, like a reluctant afterthought, "...Nathaniel."

Nathaniel winced at her tone, amusement gone. He hadn't even heard her say Chloe's name like that before. Suddenly, coming here didn't seem like such a good idea after all.

Sabine frowned before disapprovingly sending a rapid-fire of Chinese at her daughter. Nathaniel had taken Chinese lessons before, as was recommended in the first year of middle school, but he couldn't catch a single word. Heck, he might have been crazy, but he could swear that even the tones were different. He might have been one of the worst students but he didn't think he was _that_ bad. He prided himself on his skill to ask where the toilet was in Chinese.

As Sabine's barrage came to a stop, Marinette replied nearly equally as fast, her tone now exasperated and somewhat very annoyed. From the nearly constant stumbling over words and pauses between words, it was clear that she wasn't quite as fluent as her mom but her message seemed to get through well enough as Sabine cut Marinette off firmly with yet more Chinese. Nathaniel stared down at his nearly finished cup, uncomfortable as he knew that he was the very reason why they were arguing.

Nathaniel heard Marinette lightly stomp her feet with an angry huff.

"Come on, Nathaniel. Let's talk in my room."

He turned then, just in time to see her already halfway up the stairs. Quickly standing up, he started to follow the girl when he felt a hand on his back.

Sabine smiled at him. "Give me your cup. You're done, right?"

"Ah, um." Nathaniel quickly drank the last mouthful of the lukewarm drink before handing it to the woman. "Thank you."

"Don't worry about it. I'll bring you two some snacks later, okay?"

Nathaniel nodded quickly. At least she couldn't get away with murdering him if her mom came up. He'd always thought of Marinette as the kindest girl he knew, but he knew that behind every kind smile was a person capable of unforgiving wrath. And seeing what she could do as Ladybug, he wasn't particularly looking forward to being left alone with her while she at annoyed at him. There'd been more than one rumor of Ladybug playfully pushing Chat Noir off a building. The other hero of Paris had, of course, easily caught himself and swung himself back up to return the favor, but Nathaniel far from a superhero and doubted that he could survive falling off a chair unscathed, let alone a building.

Not for the first time that day, he regretted telling her that he knew her secret identity.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Sorry about the super short chapter; I found out from my professor that the last two exams are literally going to determine if I will get an A in the class...and as a nursing student relying on a merit scholarship, losing my 4.0 is literally losing money… (Lol update from 10/11/17: Didn't get that A. Welp, who needs scholarships for $56k/year tuition anyways /s)**

 **Thank you for reading and reviewing!**


	11. Chapter 10

**Awkward chapter is awkward. Tried to do an edit/rewrite after finishing this and that made a lot of inconsistencies in the flow. Whoops. Originally, this chapter was going to be** ** _very_** **different but...**

 **Moral of the story: Never let me rewrite a chapter I've already completed.**

* * *

Marinette chewed on the inside of her cheek, her previous irritation quickly melting back into nervousness as she stepped into her room and lightly placing a hand on her pink shoulder bag where Tikki hid, gently letting the kwami know to stay hidden for now as well as reassuring herself that the kwami was there. She knew that if Tikki were the kind to say "I told you so" then she would have been sure to hear it later on.

Marinette grimaced. Nice or not, Tikki would be certain to at least chide her after this. It was her own fault that she let this drag out so long in the first place. The kwami had briefly warned her when she went to the bathroom during lunch that she should talk to Nathaniel, but she'd ignored Tikki, saying that she'd take care of it later in the week. A part of her knew that she was just trying to ignore the problem, that maybe if she ignored it long enough that it would solve itself. But deep down, she knew that rarely anything worked that way. And now she was going to pay for that.

She heard Nathaniel enter after her, a little more hesitantly than she did. Plopping into her usual pink office chair, she turned to face Nathaniel who stood awkwardly in front of the trapdoor. She felt oddly like a school teacher scolding a student but pushed the feeling aside.

She nodded at the door. "You can close that."

Nathaniel hesitated but complied. "Marinette…"

"How long have you known?"

Nathaniel looked down, his bangs falling over his eyes. "A few days after I became Evillustrator," he mumbled. "I began drawing Ladybug art after that day and since I used to, um, draw you, I began noticing how similar you two were. It was easy after that. You two were never in the same place at the same time and 'Marinette' always disappeared a few minutes before 'Ladybug' appeared."

"But that…" Marinette furrowed her eyebrows as she quickly counted back the days. "That was over a month ago!"

"I didn't tell anyone!" Nathaniel quickly reassured. "I knew that you didn't want anyone to know so I kept quiet about it ever since. I would never betray you like that. You as Ladybug—that's perfect! _You're_ perfect. I didn't know how to talk to you about it since I thought that you wouldn't like that but seeing you with Adrien, I couldn't…" Nathaniel's voice trailed off, his face bright red.

"I…" Marinette's face grew warm. "Do you still...like me?"

Refusing to meet her gaze, Nathaniel instead mumbled something under his breath. Before Marinette could speak again, the boy swallowed dryly and spoke up.

"I liked you before I was akumatized. After that, um, incident, I liked Ladybug who turned out to be you so…"

"So...yes?"

He remained silent, but that was all the confirmation she needed.

Marinette bit the corner of her lip, chewing nervously. She was flattered, of course, and she had nothing against the boy (except for maybe how much stress he caused the past few days) but she just didn't feel that way about Nathaniel. He was a nice enough guy and, she had to admit, that arty side of him was kind of attractive especially since very few guys of their age were even remotely interested in any kind of art. He wasn't by any means ugly, although certainly nowhere near as attractive as Adrien. She'd simply only seen him as a classmate. Not even quite on the friend level yet.

"Nathaniel, thank you, but I'm sorry," Marinette said gently, her voice growing soft. "I don't like you like that."

"Because you like Adrien." Nathaniel's voice was surprisingly bitter, a tone uncharacteristic for the artist. "Right?"

This time, it was Marinette's turn to stay silent.

"Right." Nathaniel laughed humorlessly. "Of course you like _Adrien_. Everyone knows that. It shouldn't surprise me that even Ladybug has fallen for that _perfect_ model."

"Nathaniel, I—"

"I have everything that he has to offer—besides money. And we have more in common. We both draw, we're both into art, and—"

"Nathaniel, do you know why I like Adrien?" Marinette asked gently. Nathaniel immediately stopped his tirade and flushed with embarrassment at having gotten angry. He didn't get angry often. Annoyed, yes, but he was used to stifling his words. In fact, he was always secretly proud of keeping his temper in check most of the time, even if it was more from his lack of confidence to speak than anything else.

"Because he's cute," he said glumly. His temper died as quickly as it had flared, his usual demeanor taking over. He had returned his gaze to the floor once more, his bangs hiding his eyes once again.

"That's definitely part of the reason now," Marinette admitted. "but no. It's because he's a really kind person."

Nathaniel bit his lip at her words. Marinette, noticing this, quickly continued.

"And you're a really nice person too. You were the only person who've I seen resist Hawk Moth's commands while akumatized, even if only a little."

At this Nathaniel let out a smile. It was a small smile, one that was barely visible, but it was a start. "Really?"

"You did," Marinette confirmed. "You probably didn't hear much of what went on since the only real witnesses who saw what mostly happened other than Ladybug and Chat Noir were Chloe and me, and Chloe knew nothing of the date."

Nathaniel frowned. "What date?"

" _Anyways_ , the point is that I don't think that you're not nice. I just don't like you like that."

"Did I...go on a date?" Nathaniel looked at her, his face red. "With _you_?"

"Well...yes," Marinette admitted. "but I wouldn't call it an actual date."

Nathaniel only stared at her in disbelief. He had a feeling that there was more to what happened that day than what Chloe had said but most people had no idea what had happened outside of Chloe's recount of the fight in the room and at the school and he certainly didn't think that his alter ego was so...forward. A small part of him missed that confidence.

"I asked you on a date."

"You also tried to kill me at the end," Marinette said dryly with a smile. "Death by drowning."

"I did _what_?" Nathaniel asked incredulously. Okay, maybe being Evillustrator made him a bit too forward. And maybe a tad...unstable. Did he really try to drown her?

"I escaped, of course," Marinette said hastily. "And it's common for akumatized people to try to kill me so don't worry about it."

"I see…" Nathaniel rubbed the back of his neck. "Was the date any good?"

Sensing the conversation veering back into awkward territory again, Marinette quickly replied, "It was the only real date I've been on so far so I can't tell. I mean, there was the thing with Nino but that turned out to be a misunderstanding. But we're getting off topic."

"Right...the whole, um, Ladybug thing." Nathaniel made a mental note to ask more on the whole date thing and straightened up. "I won't tell anyone about you being Ladybug. I don't know how I can prove this to you; you'll just have to believe me. I'm sorry for being so...forward these past few days."

"A-Ah, I should be the one to apologize," Marinette said hurriedly, waving her hands frantically. "I shouldn't have ignored you like that. I was too focused on, ah, other stuff and I didn't know or want to talk to you about things so...I'm sorry. I should have listened to Tikki."

"Tikki?"

"My…" Marinette hesitated. She'd never introduced Tikki to anyone before; not even to Chat. They knew that they each had their own kwami, but they'd never met the other's kwami.

"My friend," Marinette finally lamely. Nathaniel, picking up on the hesitation, didn't pursue the matter.

"Cookies, anyone?" The trapdoor opened behind Nathaniel to reveal Sabine, one hand propping up the door and a plate of fresh chocolate chip cookies in her other. Nathaniel, startled at the sudden intrusion, automatically took a step away, nearly tripping as he did so.

"Thanks, mom," Marinette got up, taking the plate of sweets from Sabine. Her mother smiled briefly before frowning, her gaze darting to Nathaniel before speaking in Chinese, her tone disapproving.

Marinette sighed. "I know, I will."

Sabine gave her daughter one last stern look before disappearing back downstairs, closing the door after her. Marinette offered the plate to Nathaniel, who took a cookie and took a small bite. It was still warm; nearly all the sweets were fresh in this house and these were no exception.

"I didn't know you could speak Chinese."

"Only a little. I don't really speak much of it; I was more fluent when I was younger," Marinette confessed.

Nathaniel smiled. "At least you can understand it. All those Chinese classes didn't help me in the slightest, apparently."

At this, Marinette chuckled, taking a seat once again. She gestured for Nathaniel to take a seat on the chaise, an offer which Nathaniel gladly accepted. "That's probably because you learned Mandarin. That's the official Chinese dialect so that's the one that most classes teach. My family uses Cantonese. Well, my mom knows both but she only taught me Cantonese. They're called dialects but really, you can't understand Cantonese if you only know Mandarin and vice versa."

"A-Ah," Nathaniel said, feeling a little stupid now. He blushed. Now that she mentioned it, his Chinese teacher had mentioned the various dialects at one point, but he had been too engrossed in a doodle at the time. "Why didn't your mom teach you Mandarin?"

"She tried. I was never very good at it," she admitted, placing the plate of cookies on her desk. Nathaniel noticed that she took none for herself. "She said that my grandma wanted me to learn Cantonese. The tones for Cantonese are supposedly harder to learn, but I just can't seem to pick up Mandarin. My mom's family is from Canton so that was their main language. Her parents wanted to find a better future so they moved out of Canton. My grandma took her sons to Beijing and my grandpa took my mom to France where his older brother was, just to see if there was a better future out of China. They decided China was better eventually, but my mom later came back to France when she was older."

Marinette pulled a face. "My uncles know more Mandarin than Cantonese now though. Beijing uses mainly Mandarin and spending most of their lives there had an effect. I can't understand a lick of what they're saying when my mom video calls them."

"I see," Nathaniel said slowly, feeling more than a little lost. Deciding to turn the conversation back to a more familiar subject, he said, "Does your mom know about you being...Ladybug?"

Marinette shook her head quickly. "No one else knows other than you...well, I don't think anyone else knows."

"Not even Chat Noir?"

"Not even Chat," she confirmed, although a small part of her felt bad about Chat not being the first to know. She briefly considered telling Chat about her identity later, if only to rid herself of the guilt, but shook off the idea as soon as it came; it would do no good to compromise her secret any further.

Nathaniel looked surprised; he didn't expect to be the _only_ person to know. He felt...honored.

"And I want to keep it that way," Marinette hinted. Nathaniel nodded quickly.

"I won't tell another soul. I promise."

Sabine wiped the counter absentmindedly, a slight frown on her face. Her husband, Tom, glanced over in worry. He'd noticed her worry a little while ago when he saw her wiping the same spot for two minutes straight but stayed silent. Experience had told him that no amount of pestering would make her say what was bothering her until she was ready to tell.

His patience paid off; it was only a minute later that Sabine let out a small sigh and placed the towel aside behind the register. Sensing an opportunity, Tom walked up to his wife and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Is something wrong?"

Sabine smiled at him, although worry still slightly showed on her face. "Did you ever feel like Marinette is keeping a secret from us?"

Tom frowned. "Why, is she dating that Nathaniel kid?"

She smiled in amusement and almost rolled her eyes. "No, no. It's nothing like that."

"Oh." Tom's shoulder's relaxed at the news. "Then what's wrong?"

"I just overheard something troubling earlier, is all."

* * *

 **Author's Note**

 **I've always liked Marinette since she's also half Chinese. I asked my mom for the information in this chapter. My grandparents moved out of Canton for a better future so I have relatives worldwide (I actually have Chinese relatives in Paris too! Their French sound so beautiful ;_;) I was hoping someone would notice the dialect thing in the last chapter so I'm glad a lovely reviewer mentioned it; I really enjoyed that particular episode :)**

 **Not all dialects are so vastly different that you can't understand each of them. That would be a nightmare. Many of my Chinese friends have parents who speak a different dialect than Cantonese and Mandarin but the dialects are similar enough to Cantonese that I can guess what they're saying (usually) so it's all good; I don't know the name of the dialect in English but for my Cantonese readers, I'm talking about toisanwah (dunno proper pinyin)**

 **As always, thank you for reading and reviewing!**


	12. Chapter 11

"I'm sorry!"

Marinette clapped her hands together in front of her and bowed her head. Her kwami looked on with a small frown. Marinette had always thought that frowns looked adorable on Tikki, but she certainly wasn't going to tell her that now.

"I'm sorry for not listening to you earlier," Marinette continued in a rush. "And for trying to ignore Nathaniel when you told me otherwise."

Nathaniel had just left; after walking him out and saying bye to him, Marinette had to reassure her dad that she was _not_ dating Nathaniel twice. Her dad seemed to be reassured by that, probably because he knew that his daughter had absolutely no skill whatsoever in lying, but her mom had continued to look at her worriedly. It was weird; she thought that her mom liked Nathaniel and her worry didn't really make sense.

Tikki cocked her head to the side as she regarded Marinette. She crossed her arms, her frown still on her face. "I'm happy that it ended well this time, but you have to be more careful, Marinette. You can't just hope that your problems go away by themselves."

"I know, Tikki," Marinette said, her voice low. "I won't do it again."

The kwami sighed and uncrossed her arms. "I know you won't. But Nathaniel knowing about you being Ladybug is a big problem, Marinette."

"He said that he won't tell anyone," Marinette said, but Tikki was already shaking her head before she finished.

"I'm not worried about that; I believe him when he said that he won't tell anyone on purpose."

"On...purpose?" Marinette asked, confusion in her voice. "What do you mean?"

"Marinette, what if Nathaniel becomes akumatized now that he knows who you are? He's a bigger threat than others because he knows which civilian to target," Tikki said, her voice rising just a little. But there was no anger, only concern. "And if that happens, Hawk Moth would find out!"

Marinette's eyes widened; she hadn't thought of that yet. Hawk Moth knowing her civilian identity gave him an advantage of attacking her directly or even stealing her earrings when she least expected it. It was easy to protect her earrings up until now because she was reassured by the fact that she only had to guard them as Ladybug since their true value was only known while transformed, but having to be on guard all the time would surely be tiring and she'd eventually leave holes in her guard. After that, it would only be a matter of time before her earrings were taken.

"That...that won't happen," Marinette said, although her voice lacked confidence. "I'll just keep an eye on Nathaniel and make sure that he doesn't get akumatized. As long as he doesn't get akumatized again then it should be fine, I think..."

"You should tell Chat Noir."

Marinette quickly nodded. "He'll need to know to watch out for Nathaniel too. I'll tell him to let me know if he sees the Evillustrator app—"

"I mean about you being Ladybug, too," Tikki said gently.

Marinette froze. Tikki had always been on her side about not letting Chat know her identity; she knew about the risks as well as Marinette did. So why was she bringing this up now?

"It's too risky."

"But he'll also know who to protect if Nathaniel really does get akumatized," Tikki explained patiently.

"It'll also double the risk," Marinette added. "Chat can also get akumatized as a civilian. Then he can tell Hawk Moth my identity as well."

"I know, but you should consider it," Tikki said. "You don't have to but it's not a bad idea to have extra help."

Marinette pursed her lips. It wasn't like she didn't trust Chat. She'd trust Chat with her life, and she knew that he felt the same. But this was different. Like Nathaniel, Chat could also be akumatized as a civilian, doubling her risk of just having Nathaniel know. Not to mention that as great of a partner Chat was, there was no telling if he might accidentally let _something_ slip. He had a tendency of getting...carried away at times. She was about to reject the idea when she paused just as she started to open her mouth to do so. A feeling of deja vu came over her. Tikki never suggested anything if it wasn't worth considering, even if Marinette thought otherwise. She hated to admit it, but on the rare occasions that she and Tikki disagreed on something, the kwami was usually right.

"I'll think about it."

* * *

Marinette drummed her fingers against the table. As usual, she had arrived earlier than most of the class. The only other people in the room were a handful of students scattered around the room at their own tables. Most were doing last minute homework or simply playing on their phones so the room was still relatively quiet, just how Marinette liked it.

She sat at the table in the front of the room today, right in front of Ms. Ro's desk where the teacher quietly sat inputting grades into her computer to the side of which was a ceramic bowl with the remains of the teacher's breakfast. Marinette noticed that nearly everything that the teacher used that could be made out of ceramic _was_ made out of ceramic. From her unglazed pencil jar sitting on top her desk to the deep green bowl that held her breakfast, the teacher clearly wasn't in the habit of buying things that couldn't be made right here in the studio, even if some of the pieces that decorated her desk were clearly abandoned student rejects.

"Morning, Marinette!"

She jumped slightly in her seat, instinctively turning towards the voice. Nino, having just entered, grinned at her as he approached. He came to a stop next to her table.

"Morning, Nino," Marinette greeted with a smile. "You're here early."

Nino glanced at the clock above the doorway. "It's only a few minutes before class starts."

"Earlier than most people," Marinette amended. Since ceramics was the very first class of the morning as well as being an elective, many students weren't too keen on arriving before the bell. "At least you're on time."

The boy rolled his eyes. "Alya threatened to have my head if I was late."

"Uh…Why?"

"So I could make sure that you sit with a certain _someone,_ " Nino grimaced. "I swear, she's like obsessed with you two. I'm not sure if that's considered healthy."

"Sorry you have to deal with this," Marinette apologized.

"It's cool. I just wish she'd stop threatening to have my head."

"Who wants your head?"

Both turned, startled at the voice. Adrien smiled, having just come to a stop behind Nino. "Good morning."

"Dude, what are you, a cat? Don't sneak up on people like that," Nino complained. He gave a playful jab at the boy model who easily dodged it. Marinette inwardly marveled at how graceful he was; he really did move with the grace of a cat.

Behind Adrien, Nathaniel quietly shuffled into the room and took a seat at the table nearest to the door. For a second, he looked up and their eyes met only for him to quickly look down, allowing his bangs to cover his eyes as he pulled out his sketchbook.

Adrien laughed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to."

"Sure you didn't," Nino said with a roll of his eyes. "You'll probably give Marinette a heart attack one of these days."

Adrien only looked confused at this. "Why?"

Nino merely gave his friend an exasperated sigh before turning to Marinette. "So? You sitting with Adrien today, right?"

"A-Ah, yes, I mean, I guess?" Marinette said quickly, her voice coming out with a slight squeak. Luckily for her, Adrien was oblivious to this. Instead, the boy was studying his friend questioningly, his brows pulled together in confusion.

"Great, I'll leave you two alone then," Nino said with a grin, a slight emphasis on the word "alone" He started to turn away.

"Wait, Nino, we can sit together," Marinette said hurriedly. She pulled out one of the stools from under the table, gesturing to it. "Alya asked Ms. Ro if it was okay and she said yes, so we can all sit here."

"Alya?" Adrien asked. "Why did she talk to Ms. Ro?"

Nino rolled his eyes but didn't hide his grin of relief. As much as he didn't have anything against Nathaniel, the artist didn't exactly make a very good conversation partner. Or one at all for that matter. "You know how Alya is."

"That's true." Adrien scratched the back of his neck. He glanced over his shoulder. "Still, wouldn't Nathaniel be alone?"

Marinette followed his gaze. Nathaniel hadn't moved from his seat, his attention now focused on his artbook which laid open in front of him. If the boy had heard anything from the conversation over the babble of the room, he didn't show it. She felt a twinge of guilt at the sight.

"Dude, he's always alone. He probably likes it that way."

"Really?" Adrien didn't look convinced. "Maybe we should invite him at least."

"Trust me, he didn't really talk to me when I sat with him either. I don't think he'll be too upset over sitting alone," Nino replied.

It was true; Nathaniel was usually sitting by himself during class and lunch. In fact, Marinette had no idea who that boy usually hung out with, or even if he had a close friend at all. Sure, he had friends by the loosest definition, but she doubted that he was even remotely close with any of them. If Nathaniel happened to get upset over this, he wouldn't have anyone to console him. It was actually surprising that Nathaniel hadn't been akumatized multiple times already. Even the most popular kids with many friends surrounding them often fell victims to Hawkmoth; the second that they were left alone, an akuma came for them if they were upset enough. And for someone like Nathaniel who was nearly always alone...

Marinette bit her lip. This shouldn't upset Nathaniel enough to get akumatized, right? Maybe hurt his feelings a tiny bit but being akumatized might be a far stretch.

But then again, she'd seen people get akumatized for smaller reasons.

She bit back a sigh before abruptly standing up. "Adrien's right; I'll go invite him."

Both Adrien and Nino looked at her with matching raised eyebrows, Nino, more so than Adrien. "Why?"

Marinette hesitated, unsure of how to answer. Of course to Nino it wouldn't make sense; she'd set back her chances with Adrien and it's not like she could explain the truth to him. Luckily for her, however, Adrien answered for her.

"It wouldn't be right to just leave him like that," he said. "Besides, an invitation wouldn't hurt."

"Where is he going to sit, though?" Nino gestured to the table. "I mean, sure, this table can fit three people, but four is really pushing it."

Marinette studied the table critically. It was true; the main reason why they managed to fit three people to a table last time was that because all of them were fairly skinny. Ceramics itself takes up a good amount of space; she was lucky they were all working on small projects at the time. The only plausible way for all of them to work on the same table would be to have two people on each side, but putting two people on the other side of this table would block the walkway since they were at the end of the row. Unless…

"Not if you two sit at that table," Marinette said, gesturing to the table behind her. Luckily, it was still empty. "Nathaniel and I can turn to face you guys and we can all work on your table. We can leave our boards on our own table so it won't take up too much space. That way we can all face each other and work."

"That...would work," Adrien said, smiling. "And we won't have a shortage of tools since there'll technically be two people per table. Nice thinking, Marinette."

Marinette blushed. "T-Thank you."

"Just one objection," Nino interrupted. He grinned. "Why don't you and Adrien share a side? I can sit next to Nathaniel."

Adrien frowned. He couldn't help but feel as if Nino has been trying to distance himself from the boy for a while now; especially in ceramics class. "Why?"

"That way we'll each be next to someone who actually knows what they're doing," Nino lied easily. "Why put two idiots next to each other when we have two artists as well?"

Adrien raised an eyebrow. "Nino, you're worse than me in ceramics. Your stamp looks like a first grader made it."

"It's abstract art."

" _Really_ abstract," Marinette added with a small smile.

Nino made a face. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

"Do you think your stamp is beautiful?" Adrien asked, grinning.

"Well, I mean…Marinette, why don't you go get Nathaniel?" Nino said, changing the subject. Adrien rolled his eyes but let his friend off.

Marinette nodded and started to leave. "I'll be right back."

* * *

Nathaniel erased his sketch absentmindedly. It was probably the fifth time that he's had to redraw the body now. From some of the small snippets that he'd overheard earlier, he gathered that the three of them were sitting together today and probably for the rest of the semester. He'll probably never get a chance to talk to Marinette again in this class.

But that shouldn't matter, right? She made it clear that she wasn't interested in him, and try as he might, he had a feeling that it'll be extremely difficult to make her forget about Adrien. On top of that, she probably still didn't completely trust him to not tell anyone about her other identity.

Which is why he was trying his best to ignore the group of friends on the other side of the room. The faster he got over her, the better. He'd step out of her life; it'll go back to how it used to be. How it should be.

Besides, who would want to date someone like him? He was a nobody, someone who no one even wanted to sit next to. He couldn't blame them; it was his fault for being so bad at socializing. Sure, people have tried to talk to him before, but they all got bored of him really quickly. He really couldn't blame Nino and Marinette for jumping at the chance to all sit at the same table with Adrien; it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Before they left him, just like how everyone else did eventually.

His pencil tip broke, leaving an ugly mark on the face of the person he was drawing. He paused for a moment before reaching for his sharpener for the third time that morning.

"Nathaniel?"

Nathaniel started slightly at the sound, a blush automatically rising to his face as he recognized the voice. He looked up, hardly daring to believe his eyes.

Marinette smiled unsurely at him. She felt awkward, he could tell from how she held her elbows. She used to have a habit of playing with her hair a long time ago in primary school; the reason why she started tying it up was an attempt to curb this habit and instead began holding her elbows to stop her hands from automatically drifting upwards to touch her hair.

"Do you want to come sit with us?"

Nathaniel blinked. He wasn't sure if he heard her correctly. "Um, what?"

"Do you want to come sit with us?" she repeated. He noticed her grip tighten. "Um, only if you want to. But we have space if you want to sit with us."

"I—Why?"

"Why not?" Marinette shrugged, looking away. Her face held a trace of...pity? Guilt? Reluctance? Nathaniel dismissed these notions; it was most likely just her feeling awkward.

"I mean, why _me_?"

"Did you want to sit alone?"

"I'm used to it."

"That doesn't answer my question," Marinette said, a smile tugging the corners of her lips. Then she frowned. "Used to it?"

"You didn't answer my question either," Nathaniel pointed out. "Why me?"

"Because we're all friends in this class…" Marinette trailed off at Nathaniel's look of disbelief. She tried again. "Okay, well, we're all classmates in our normal classes together."

"You're inviting me because you feel bad," he deadpanned. Despite his words, he felt a little touched. Most people wouldn't even bother. He also felt a surge of hope, but he quickly crushed it. I've caused her enough trouble already, he told himself firmly. The last thing I need is to push her away again.

"Well, no," Marinette bit her cheek. "I mean…"

Nathaniel hid a smile. "I'm kidding."

She frowned. "I knew that."

Nathaniel didn't answer; instead, he closed his sketchbook. Standing up, he slung his bookbag over his shoulder and held his sketchbook close to his chest. He smiled at Marinette.

"I'll sit with you guys."

* * *

 **Author's Note**

 **Confession: I actually ship Marinette and Nathaniel (I mean, I ship Marinette and Adrien too but…) I wanted to write this story as that ship but since it's not cannon, I know that no one would read it (rip)**

 **This is late, but the teacher who this story was based on (my wonderful ceramics teacher from high school) is now retired as of last month :)**

 **I think I mentioned this before, but the room this story's class takes place in is actually based off of the room I first learned ceramics in; I went to a public high school that is actually very well-known among locals in the California bay area (shout-out to fellow locals!) and writing this story is getting really bittersweet for me ;_;**

 **Thank you for reading and reviewing!**

* * *

 **Ladybug02 - ;) Thank you for reading!**

 **Mayuralover - No, thank** _ **you**_ **for reading!**

 **Guest - You may be onto something :)**

 **sergeant peace - ? Thank you for reading!**

 **Spinnerofdark - :)**

 **FicsFromAnAnbuNin - Ahaha, that was the first thing I wanted to put into this story since I'm Chinese as well. Thank you for reading!**

 **WolfMistwood - Maybe ;) Thank you for reading!**


	13. Chapter 12

"Today we're going to move onto our next project—tea bowls," Ms. Ro announced, holding up what looked like a small bowl as an example. Glazed a royal blue, the small piece fits comfortably within her hand. "Everyone should be finished with their stamps by now; if you're not, I am here after school to help you finish. Now, in Japan, tea ceremonies are more than just drinking tea. Does anyone know anything about these ceremonies?"

From the corner of her eye, Marinette noticed Nathaniel start to raise his hand, only to quickly lower it. Since the whiteboard was on the left side of the room, the class had turned in their seats to face it, and Nathaniel, who was seated at the table behind Marinette with Nino, was now on Marinette's left. Unfortunately for him, Ms. Ro noticed his movement as well.

"Nathaniel?"

Nathaniel hesitated. "I don't really know a lot about it, but I think there's usually someone who makes the tea with a whisk for another person and they have to do a lot of specific things. It's kinda formal."

Ms. Ro nodded. "This is called the chanoyu," she said, setting the example piece down and writing the phrase on the board. "It means tea ceremony in Japanese. In these ceremonies, people use tea bowls to drink tea from, which is what we will be making in class. We'll be making pinch pot bowls."

"Pinch pot is the most basic method in ceramics. First, you take some clay and wedge it like this," Ms. Ro explained, walking over to the wedging table. She opened one of the two bags of clay on the plaster and pulled out a piece of clay about the size of a tennis ball. Taking this clay, she began rapidly wedging it on the wedging table. "Remember not to wedge too long on this table; the plaster dries it out faster than when you wedge it at your own table. Next, shape the clay into a rough ball."

Taking the now-wedged clay, she began molding it. Within a few seconds, it became roughly spherical. "Now take your thumb," she held up her right thumb. "And push it into the clay. Not too deep; maybe two-thirds of the way in."

"Once your thumb is inside, begin rotating the piece and lightly pinching it with your thumb and fingers on the outside as you go. Do _not_ apply too much pressure on one side; it's better if you keep a constant light pressure as you go around. As you do this, gradually make it deeper, but be careful to not make the bottom too thin," she warned. Ms. Ro held the clay in her left hand to support the clay, her right thumb buried in the wet clay. Her other fingers of her right hand were outside of the soon-to-be bowl, slightly curved to form a bowl shape. Marinette noticed that the woman only rotated the clay a little each time. Maybe a centimeter or two with each rotation, although the teacher moved quickly. Within a few minutes, the ball of clay had transformed into a small bowl, albeit a slightly lumpy one, no bigger than two fists.

"Next, we need to make a foot. Can anyone tell me what a foot is? Other than a body part."

The class stayed silent.

Ms. Ro picked up her example bowl once again and held it up above her head so that the whole class could see. Turning the bowl onto its side, she held it so that the unglazed bottom of the piece was clearly visible.

"A foot," she started, "is what holds a piece up. It keeps the piece stable and raises the piece, both visually and physically; you will all be required to make a foot. There are two ways to make a foot, attaching it or pinching it. I'll attach one for this example."

Setting the finished bowl down once again, she walked over to the wedging table once more with her piece. She carefully placed the bowl on the wedging table and tore off a small piece of clay from the clay from inside the clay bag. She only wedged this piece a few times before taking it in her hands and forming it a small coil with it.

"Usually it'll be best to do this on a table, but since this is an example piece, I'm not too worried about making it perfect. Take both ends of this clay coil and overlap them until the circle is about the size of the foot that you want. From here, you'll want to take your needle tool—I'm going to borrow this—and cut right in the middle of the overlap." Ms. Ro demonstrated the technique with a needle tool taken from Nathaniel's table. She set the tool down and held up the resulting clay pieces with both hands. A few of the students stood up to get a better view.

"Take away the ends that are cut off and you're left with a coil the size that you want. Can anyone tell me what to do next?"

"Give up?" A few snickers came from the back of the room.

"Hopefully not. Anyone else?" Her gaze drifted around the room before landing on Nathaniel. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Nathaniel?"

"...Score and slip?"

"Correct. Remember, you _never_ attach clay without scoring and slipping. First, we score both ends of the coil and, taking some slip, we slip it. Press both ends together to form a circle, wipe away the excess, and we're left with a coiled circle. This will be our foot." Ms. Ro picked up her clay bowl and turned it upside down, exposing the bottom of the piece. "Now we attach it to the bottom in the same way. Once the foot is attached, just wipe away the excess slip and smooth out the seams with either your finger or a tool. When that's done, you can begin decorating your piece. Starting from now on, every student will be required to have a critique sheet for every piece that they make."

"Critique sheets can be found next to my desk; they're preprinted sheets where you'll be required to draw your piece, explain how you made it, have other people write their critique for your piece, and describe the final piece. All of these for each project will be due at the end of the year as part of your ceramics portfolio. Any questions?" As expected, the class was silent. "Good, you can get started."

The class broke away into a murmur as the teacher returned to her desk. Most students immediately stood up and made a beeline for the wedging table where all of the clay was. No one wanted to use the recycled clay, which would be all that is left for anyone who wasn't lucky enough to grab a piece of the new clay. Not that it mattered to Marinette; clay is clay, regardless if it's used or not.

"A bowl for tea? Why not cups?" Nino asked, a slight frown on his face. Next to him, Nathaniel had turned to face the table again, quietly keeping an eye on the wedging table. Marinette and Adrien didn't really move much; they were already facing Nathaniel and Nino's table in order to see the board.

"They do use cups, just not in tea ceremonies," Adrien replied. "It's a ceremony so it's different."

"H-Have you been to Japan?" Marinette asked. She was hyper-aware of how close Adrien's elbow was to her's. If she didn't know better, she'd think that he did that on purpose.

"Only once. Some of my father's business partners are in Japan so he brought me along," Adrien explained. "I took part in a tea ceremony once, but that was when I was really young. I don't really remember any of it."

"I bet you've been everywhere by now," Nino commented with a grin. "But I'm surprised Nathaniel knows about it."

At the mention of his name, the artist unconsciously lowered his head a bit, just enough for his hair to fall in front of his face.

"I'm taking Japanese," he murmured.

"Japanese?" Adrien echoed. He looked curiously at the boy. "I thought we don't take language classes here?"

"It's not required, but we can choose to start this year," Nino explained. "They sent out forms at the end of last year but most people chose to not start yet. Didn't you want to take a language class, Marinette? You were talking about it last year, I think."

"Ah, yeah," Marinette said, partly in surprise. She'd nearly forgotten about that. "I didn't turn in my form in time though so they didn't accept me."

"What class were you going to take?" Adrien asked, curiously. "Chinese?"

Marinette pulled a face. "My parents wanted me to take Chinese so that they could help me. I would have probably taken it if they offered Cantonese classes here instead of Mandarin."

"What's wrong with Mandarin?"

"I never got the hang of it," Marinette admitted. "Cantonese is easier for me."

Adrien laughed. "Is that why Alya asked me to translate your uncle before?"

"Yeah...Sorry about that," Marinette said sheepishly. It's been awhile since Alya had asked Adrien for help with her uncle; she still didn't know if she should be mortified or grateful towards Alya for that.

"It was no problem, really. I got to practice my Chinese after all," Adrien said reassuringly. "Father had me take Mandarin classes since I was a kid so it wasn't a big deal."

"I-I see."

"You probably know already, but it was really annoying learning it in the beginning," Adrien laughed. "I can't blame you for not wanting to take it. But if you weren't going to take Chinese classes, which class were you going to take?"

"Wasn't it Japanese or something?" Nino asked. He frowned slightly. "Yeah, you mentioned it near the end of the year, didn't you?"

"I think I did," Marinette said slowly. "But why do you remember that?"

"Oh, that's cause—" Nino stopped abruptly. His eyes flickered to Nathaniel, but this went unnoticed by Marinette.

"Cause...?"

"I probably just remembered by chance," Nino finished lamely. "You know how memories are."

Nathaniel continued to study the table. Adrien looked at the artist curiously.

"Shouldn't we get some clay?" Adrien finally asked, standing up. "There aren't that many people at the wedging table anymore."

"Ah, yeah." Marinette followed suit, rolling up her sleeves as she did so. Although her jacket sleeve was already somewhat short, she still went home with clay on her sleeves the past couple days. Her mom had already given her enough grief about that to last until next week.

"Should Nathaniel and I stay here while you guys go get clay?" Nino asked.

"I guess. We can bring clay back for you two," Adrien replied with a smile. "Let's go, Marinette."

"O-Okay."

"Don't let Adrien choose the clay," Nino called after them as they left. "I swear he brought back _rocks_ to work with the first day."

"They were just a little dry!" Adrien protested.

"They _crumbled_ apart when we tried to work with them."

"Is that true?" Marinette asked curiously. She noticed that his ears turned slightly red at the question.

"He's exaggerating. But they did kind of...fall apart," Adrien admitted. "Father didn't really sign me up for many art classes."

Huh. So even Adrien had something he wasn't good at, Marinette thought. She didn't know why, but this amused her. Who knew that the one area that the model wasn't good at was an area that she excelled in.

"That explains the lack of art classes in your schedule," Marinette commented, mainly to herself. Although they had waited, there were still a few people in front of them waiting for clay. There even seemed to be plenty of the new clay left to take back.

"My...schedule?" Adrien asked, confused. "What do you know about my schedule?"

"Er, I mean," Marinette blushed. "Well, you see…"

"I see…?"

"You don't…look like the kind of person who does art," Marinette said finally. Then, building upon this, she nodded quickly. "Most artists have a sketchbook, look a little messy from doing art, or just doodle during class. Or something. Or you can just tell."

"How do you know I don't doodle during class?" Adrien teased. "Do you watch me?"

"Ye— _No_. But you sit directly in front of me and…" Marinette gestured helplessly.

Adrien smiled. "I'm kidding."

"O-Of course. I knew that."

"I see," Adrien said humorously. "Anyways, shouldn't we get our clay?"

"Ah, yeah," Marinette said, picking up the discarded wire from the wedging table. It was a simple metal wire small smooth wooden sticks tied to each end acting as handles. In a way, it reminded Marinette of a cheese cutting wire. "How much clay should we get?"

"Hmm, I'm not sure. I brought back too little clay last time, so I trust your judgment over mine."

Unable to think of a reply, Marinette simply nodded. Taking the tool by its wooden handles, she quickly wound the wire around her fingers so that it was a manageable length before slicing into the clay. After the first horizontal cut, she made two perpendicular cuts to the top, resulting in four small blocks of clay.

Picking the clay blocks up, Adrien studied them. "Is this enough?"

"It's how much Ms. Ro used." Marinette started to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, only to realize that her hands were encrusted with clay. Frowning, she settled for tossing her head in an attempt to move the strand. She nearly always missed a strand of hair whenever she tied it up; she wasn't sure if it was from lack of skill or if it was just how hair worked. "It's a bowl so it shouldn't take too much clay. Do you need help carrying those?"

"Nah, I got it. Don't worry about me." He shot her a smile. "Let's go."

"Are you sure? I can help…"

"It's just clay. I handle tougher things regularly."

"Tougher...things?"

Adrien grinned. "Recreational sports."

"Fencing?" Marinette guessed. "Or basketball?"

He winked at her. "It's a secret."

"A-ah, okay."

"What's a secret?" Nino asked, eyeing the blocks in Adrien's hands. "Is that enough clay?"

"Nothing, and yes," Adrien replied, setting the blocks down in the middle of the table. Then he paused. "Well, Marinette says it's enough," he amended sheepishly.

"It's enough," Nathaniel confirmed quietly.

"Well, if the two artists say it's enough then it must be enough. Marinette chose the clay this time, right?" Nino asked as he reached for one of the blocks of clay. Marinette did the same.

"I only chose the dry clay once," Adrien protested, taking a seat next to Marinette. "And that was the first time we worked with clay."

"Adrien, it was so dry, it was literally a different color."

"Not all clay is the same color."

"Not all clay falls apart into dust when you work with it either. Honestly, man, that clay was a health hazard."

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad…" Marinette said, beginning to wedge her block of clay on the table. She hadn't bothered to sit down; clay, recycled or not, needed to be wedged. Across from the table, Nathaniel had also stood up to do the same with his block of clay. He had taken his jacket off, which now laid on top of his bookbag under the table, and had rolled up his sleeves the same way that Marinette had. Next to Nathaniel, Nino stood up as well. Since he wore his usual short sleeve shirt, he didn't need to bother with rolling up anything.

"See, Marinette agrees with me," Adrien said with a smile as he stood up.

"Marinette didn't see the clay you chose."

"Is this revenge for making fun of your stamp?"

"Yup."

"You're wedging too slow," Nathaniel interrupted softly. He'd paused his wedging mid-push and was studying Marinette's clay. "That's why it's sticking to the table."

It was true. A good portion of her clay had stuck to the table, as was the same as Nino and Adrien's clay. Although less of Marinette's clay stuck to the table then theirs, it was still enough to be annoying. She'd been trying to wedge harder in hopes that the offending clay would stick back onto the original piece with no luck. She noticed that Nathaniel didn't have the same problem.

"You need to wedge faster and, um, softer. Don't push the clay as much as you would with drier clay," Nathaniel explained. Slightly lifting up the clay tool holder from the table, he took out a small, flat rubber blue tool. It somewhat resembled a flattened stone, if stones were blue and made of rubber. "Here, use the kidney tool to scrape it off the table and start over."

"Oh, thanks," Marinette said, slightly in surprise. She took the tool from him. "Have you done ceramics before?"

"...Not really."

"You know a lot for someone who just started," Nino interjected. He gestured to the tool in Marinette's hand. "You even know the names of the tools. By the way, give me that when you're done so I can scrape my clay too."

"I...may have taken a few classes before," Nathaniel confessed. "But I'm still not really good at it."

"You told me that you weren't good at drawing last year in a group project. I can't tell if your standards are really high or if you're just modest."

Nathaniel didn't answer.

"Better to be modest than arrogant," Adrien commented, taking the tool from Nino. "So we should wedge faster, softer, and not...push as far?"

Nathaniel nodded. "That'll minimize the amount of clay that sticks to the table. The point is to dry it out a little first and then slowly add more force until you can wedge normally. Clay straight from the bag tends to be wet enough to stick to tables when you wedge."

"Are there any other tips you can give us?" Adrien asked, smiling at Nathaniel.

"...Don't flatten your clay that much when you wedge."

"'Not really good at it'," Nino repeated, shaking his head. "You and Marinette are seriously too modest."

"They don't need to brag. Skill speaks for itself," Adrien laughed, causing Marinette to blush at the praise. "Ah, speaking of skill, Marinette, do you want me to pay for the charm that you're making for me?"

"N-No, it's no big deal. It's pretty easy; I was going to make it last night but I got...distracted. Sorry," she apologized. Adrien waved the apology aside.

"No, it's fine. It's not a rush order or anything. But I feel bad if I don't give you something in return. Besides, artists should be paid for their work."

"It's really not a big deal though. It's just a Ladybug charm, right? I can teach you how if you want…?" Marinette trailed off uncertainly. Across from her, Nathaniel's wedging became slightly more forceful.

"Really?" Adrien's eyes lit up. "Are you sure? Is it not too much trouble? You don't mind?"

"It's no trouble, since it's for yo—a friend."

"In that case, I have to pay you back somehow. I can buy you lunch sometime."

Her heart skipped a beat. "You don't have to…"

"I insist. Is after school today okay?"

"Y-Yeah."

"Great, I'll see you after school then," Adrien said, flashing her a smile. Across from him, Nino grinned.

* * *

 **Author's Note**

 **Y'all are going to hate me in the next within the next two class scenes.**

 **I couldn't include all the tips for the pinch pot technique in this chapter; read on if you're interested in trying this for yourself in the future :)**

 **Long thumbnails are pain and suffering with this technique. Never be afraid of a little thickness during the pinching phase; it's a lot easier to make it thinner later on than to make it thicker. Many beginners also make the mistake of making the edge too thin during this phase as well; it's easy to let the rim get too thin/wide so be careful. Keep pressure constant; the slower you rotate, the better. Always give yourself some extra thickness in the bottom to work with.**

 **Thank you for reading and reviewing!**

* * *

Melancholy's Sunshine - That's coming up soon :) I actually tried to fit it into this chapter but it ended up being way too long… Thank you for reading!

Clarisa - Waah, thank you for reading! That's the longest review I've had; I'm super, super flattered. I can't answer all the questions here since I don't want to accidentally spoil it for anyone but feel free to shoot me a PM! You did get some things right though :)

Technicolortardis - A lot of people I know ship Nathaniel with Chloe because of couple popular comics, haha. I didn't know other classes had stamps as a first project; that's really cool! Thank you for reading :)

SailorMew4 - Middle school romance is always a recipe for awkwardness, haha. Thank you for reading!

Spinnerofdark - I'm the same! But there's also good fanart of Nathaniel online and he's just so cute ;_; Thank you for reading!

Aliumonions - I actually didn't consider that before I read your review; it definitely got me thinking as soon as I saw your review though. I may just find a way to work that in :) Thank you for reading!

AkumatizedPancake - Ahh, thank you so much! I think requirements vary across school districts here; at the school I went to, two years of art was required in high school and students have the option of going on to take college credit classes for art (and other subjects) Thank you so much for reading; I hope I don't disappoint!

Dancing Princess - Thank you! I had actually planned for this to be only a little over 20 chapters but some/most of my chapters are a lot shorter than I expected...I also want to cover basic ceramics as well as finish the plot so, at this point, I would say a dozen or so more chapters? Maybe less… I actually thought of a secondary pairing to be shown soon so I might only mention NinoXAlya in passing or in snippets. Thank you for reading~

Luiz4200 - This will be MariXAdrien but Nathaniel will find a match as well :) Thank you for reading!

Gleamqueen - Haha, adrinette is coming! I wanted to put some in this chapter actually, but it got too long ;_; Thank you for reading!

Mayuralover - Thank you for being a continuing reader of my stories! :3

FicsFromAnAnbuNin - I agree; I was disappointed when I searched the pairing up...But I am interested in writing an alternative to this story to be MariXNathaniel when I'm done :) Thank you for reading my stories!

sweet XD melody - No worries, he won't be alone ;) Thank you for reading!

Rosalind2013 - Ahh, I think you're the first reviewer to be currently taking a ceramics class! How is it? Are you doing hand building? Thank you so much for reading!

Niyatb - Thank you for reading! I always felt that the tomato child was being neglected in stories ;_;


	14. Chapter 13

**If you got here from googling a certain quote about a river that was sent to you in a private chat, I will happily write an equally cheesy quote for your gravestone because you'll be needing one soon.**

* * *

 _I'm so proud of you omg_

Marinette smiled as she read the note before scribbling down a reply.

 _Don't be proud yet, I'll probably mess it up_

Alya glanced at the note before grimacing and scribbling down her own reply. _A for effort. Do you have an idea of where to go?_

"And so, the Meiji Restoration began in 1868. One notable change is the restoration of the emperor system…"

 _Not really…?_ Marinette wrote back. _He said he had a place in mind already but he didn't tell me where_

"...Leading to many reforms within Japan, including a very powerful navy and army…"

 _Great that it's today though since we get out early today. What are you guys going to do after?_

 _Go to my house and do clay stuff, I guess_

 _:)_

…

"The term 'Meiji' comes from the reign name that the emperor assumed after coming into power and the event has been known as the 'Meiji Restoration' from then on…"

 _I think you'll be fine tbh since you've seem to have gotten a lot better at talking around him lately_

 _Have I?_

 _At worst, you only stutter and mumble. Remember when you used to mix up whole sentences and forget half your words?_

 _Don't remind me_

 _The point is, I'm sure you'll be ok. Promise me that you'll tell me all about it later?_

 _Of course. As long as you answer your phone if I need you_

 _Psh, you won't need me. You gotta have some confidence, girl_

"Are there any questions?" The teacher finally asked, bringing her lecture to a close. "Good. Now remember to study for the next lesson, we'll be moving onto imperialism after this. Class dismissed."

"Ahh, I nearly fell asleep," Nino yawned, stretching. He turned. "Alya, are you free today?"

"Cover your mouth when you yawn," Alya chided. "And I am, why?"

"Well, since these two," Nino jerked his thumb towards Adrien and Marinette. "are ditching us, I thought we could go grab a bite somewhere."

"Did you guys want to join us?" Adrien suggested.

"Uh, no. You two have fun, dudes." Nino said. "I gotta talk to Alya about something."

"Oh, Adrikins~!"

Marinette winced at the voice, just as Chloe all but ran into Adrien, arms thrown around the boy. Silently trailing behind her was Sabrina, an ever blank smile fixed on her face.

"Come over to my house today. I have a _big_ surprise for you," Chloe cooed. "There's this _perfect_ restaurant that opened near daddy's hotel last week and they only serve the _best_. Won't you come with me? Pretty, pretty please?"

Alya rolled his eyes. In front of her, Nino simply pulled a face but otherwise stayed silent, already used to the blond girl. Marinette seethed.

"Sorry, Chloe," Adrien began, prying the girl off of him. He was, for the most part, unsuccessful. "I already have plans."

"Plans? Another photoshoot?" Chloe whined. "But you just had one _yesterday_."

"They're different plans," Adrien explained apologetically. "Sorry. Maybe another time."

"But you _always_ say that. We haven't hung out since, like—"

"A few days ago," Adrien finished for her, exasperated. He gently, yet firmly, unwound her arms from around him.

"Psh, a few days ago is, like, forever ago," Chloe said dismissively. "And you only stayed for, like, an hour. That's totally not enough time."

"You were alone with Chloe for an hour? I'm impressed," Alya cut in, smiling dryly at Adrien. "I wouldn't have lasted ten minutes with her."

"Excuse me?" Chloe turned, disdain on her face. She sneered at the girl. "I wouldn't be caught _dead_ with a loser like you."

"Thank goodness for that," Alya muttered, earning a snort from Nino. Fuming, Chloe crossed her arms.

"What _ever_. Adrien, I don't see why you hang out with these losers when you have someone like _me_. Let me know when you actually want some quality company. Come, Sabrina. We're going."

Sabrina nodded quickly, her head bobbing as she scampered after the other girl out the door, both their bags in her hands.

"You know, I'm still amazed at how you survived your childhood with her as your friend, dude. Cruel and unusual punishment right there," Nino commented, rising from his seat. "Y'all ready?"

"She's not too bad once you get to know her," said Adrien, rising as well. He shrugged apologetically.

"Right. And I'm the Queen of England," Alya replied as she rolled her eyes. "Nino, where do you want to go?"

"I dunno, I was thinking about this new boba place."

"What's boba?"

"...You are no longer my friend. Anyways, how about you guys?" Nino asked, turning. "Where are you two headed?"

"Um…" Marinette automatically looked at Adrien. She wanted to know the answer as well. The only places that she could think of were some small shops that students frequented, but she'd never seen him go in. In fact, she had always assumed that eating outside at any place less than a five-star restaurant was almost unheard of for him, given his lifestyle.

"A new cafe that opened a while back," Adrien answered. "I passed by it once when they were holding their grand opening and it looked nice, I just haven't had the time to check it out yet. I was going to have my driver drive us there. You don't mind, do you, Marinette?"

"N-No, not at all," she quickly replied. In truth, she'd never even dreamed of ever riding with Adrien in a million years—was she even ready? Are there certain etiquettes for riding fancy cars? What if she made a fool of herself? Dear lord, what had she just gotten herself into?

"Good," said Adrien, cheerfully unaware of her dilemma. "Let's go then."

* * *

There are many things that Marinette Dupain-Cheng never really grew up worrying about. There was never a real shortage of friends, money, love, or anything of the sort in her life. She knew that she was fortunate in that aspect, she was free to do what she wished to without any serious worries. As a result, she never felt that her family was poor in any sense of the word. Her family's bakery was quite popular in Paris with many calling the store the best of its kind in Paris, and they were well off because of that. They were not rich, sure, but certainly not poor either. Any hobby that she wanted to pursue as a child, her parents granted. Books that she'd wanted to read on a whim, her parents bought. Yes, money was never something that she felt she lacked.

Until now.

"U-Um, Adrien?" Marinette tentatively asked. She wound and unwound her fingers together on her lap under the table as she fought to keep her back straight. It was a harder thing said than done, considering how sorely out of place she felt.

"Hm?" Adrien looked up from his menu, a smile on his face.

"Where...are we?"

"The cafe I was talking about. Aren't you going to look at your menu?" he asked, gesturing towards said menu in front of the girl.

Truth be told, she had looked at it. Looked at it and put it down in shock.

She'd had her first doubt about the affordability of the place when they walked in, the mahogany walls trimmed with what looked like gold were only one of the things that set off her warnings in her head. When she noticed the day's special to be caviar on toast, she was already praying to be able to afford _something_ at least. Of course, that hope was dashed when they each received their menus.

"Adrien...I can't afford this," she said, keeping her voice low, afraid of someone else overhearing. As spaced out as the tables were, the last thing that she wanted was a passing waiter to overhear and silently judge her for her poverty. Even now, she half expected Adrien to look down on her, despite his normal friendly personality. Instead, he cocked his head to the side, confused.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I can't afford any of this. _Maybe_ a single cup of tea, but that's it," said Marinette, glancing at the menu again.

"That's fine, I'm paying. Order whatever you like, don't worry about the price," Adrien replied with yet another model smile. It was like the boy was made for smiling, with him tossing them out left and right like that. Then again, he probably was, given his father's job.

"I can't, it's too much," she tried. But he was already shaking his head.

"Really, it's no big deal. My treat, I insist. Besides, I'm the one who's taking up your time."

"My time isn't worth hundred dollar finger sandwiches or pots of tea that sells for a couple hundred."

"You're right. It's worth more."

Marinette blushed. "You know what I mean."

"Do I?" Adrien finally set his menu down. "Would it make you feel better if I order for you then?"

"Well, yes, but I can't repay—"

"No need," he said interrupted, shaking his head. "Really, it's fine. Don't worry about it. Do you have any allergies?"

"No, but—"

"Good," he said, flashing a smile at her, momentarily dazing her. He waved down a waiter.

"We'll have the lunch special, please. Set B for me and C for her," he said, inclining his towards Marinette. The waiter nodded.

"Very good. Will that be all?" He asked as he gathered their menus. If the man was even remotely surprised at having middle schoolers in this kind of cafe, he didn't show it. Then again, he probably recognized Adrien from one of the hundreds of posters of the model for Gabriel Agreste's newest collection.

Adrien nodded. With their menus in his arms, the waiter gave a slight bow before walking away.

"T-Thank you," said Marinette, bowing her head slightly.

Adrien shrugged and smiled again. "It's no big deal. I don't go out often with friends, so this is nice."

"What about Nino?" she asked curiously. She'd think that the two would hang out often after school. Even with Adrien's hectic schedule, there were always some small gaps here and there.

"Nino doesn't really like the places I bring him to," Adrien replied with a slight frown. "He said something about feeling uncomfortable."

"Did you bring him to a place like...this?" Marinette nodded at their surroundings.

"Huh? Yeah, I guess. Why, do people normally not go out to eat?" Adrien furrowed his brows.

Marinette laughed, more from disbelief than anything. She knew that Adrien was sheltered, but she didn't think that he was _this_ sheltered. Sure, she always knew that he was rich. As a boy model, son of the fashion designer Gabriel Agreste, it was expected. It never really bothered or interested her of course, she just never thought of his wealth as anything more than a fact that followed him around. What was interesting to her was his personality. Who would have thought that someone so kind, so thoughtful, would be born out of such a background? Someone so... _perfect_. Like a modern-day price.

A ridiculously dense, sheltered prince.

The "prince" in question, was understandably confused. He knew that Marinette wasn't the kind of person to be mean, but laughing at him was something unexpected and only served to add to his confusion. Was his question really that weird? He tried again.

"Is there something wrong with eating outside?" He asked. He tried to catch her eye this time, but as soon as he did, she quickly avoided his gaze, instead choosing to study her empty plate. Was there something on his face?

"N-No. It's just...these places are kind of expensive…" she explained, avoiding his gaze.

"These places?" He asked, only growing more confused by the minute. "What do you mean?"

She gestured around them. "I mean, like, these kinds of places. Most of us have never been to somewhere so expensive before. I don't think I can buy anything to eat here with my monthly allowance."

"You can't?" Adrien said in surprise. Marinette shook her head.

"Most people our age can't. That's why we're the only teenagers here now. It's too expensive for us."

"Oh…I'm sorry. I didn't realize," he apologized. He rubbed his neck. "Do you want to leave? Is this place uncomfortable for you? We can go elsewhere if you want."

"No, no, it's fine," Marinette said quickly. Her hand came up, almost to her shoulder, before she paused and instead held her elbows almost absentmindedly, lightly gripping them. He recognized the movement, he'd seen her do the same thing multiple times already. He idly wondered if there was a reason for it.

"Are you sure?" He looked at her worriedly. She had a flush on her face as she nodded in reply, almost as if she was embarrassed or something. The girl almost constantly kept her gaze low and fidgeted in her seat. Every once in awhile, she'd catch his eye, only for her to flush even more and look away. At the very least, she looked uncomfortable. It made sense now; bringing her to this kind of place was definitely a bad idea. Next time, he'd try bringing her to somewhere cheaper, or somewhere that didn't require money at all. The park maybe?

Next time? With a start, he realized he'd assumed a "next time" There wasn't a reason for a "next time," though. Not alone, anyway. Even he wasn't dense enough to not realize that hanging out alone like this could be considered a "date", and that wouldn't do. A date is something reserved for someone you like, someone amazing, someone like _Ladybug_. Yes, he'd have to bring Ladybug here one day for sure. He wondered if Ladybug would be uncomfortable in a place like this. With all the grace and refinement that the superhero carried herself with, probably not. He couldn't imagine Ladybug flustered or uncomfortable. She was too beautiful, too elegant. She was like a princess.

 _His_ princess.

"A-Adrien?"

He snapped out of his thoughts. Marinette was peering at him through her eyelashes now. Distractedly, he wondered if her eyes had always been like that. So blue. So...familiar.

"Yes?"

"Are you a fan of Ladybug?"

"Where did this question come from?" He slightly tilted his head to the side. Marinette pursed her lips, her cheeks tinted pink. Was she still uncomfortable?

"It's just...I'm curious," she said finally. "Since you want to make a Ladybug charm."

"Well...yes," he admitted. His own cheeks were rose-tinted now, it was rare for him to talk about Ladybug to anyone. Outside of being Chat, that is.

"Why?"

"She's, um," he racked his brain for the right words. "Beautiful."

"Beautiful?" Marinette flushed bright red. Was his choice of word too weird?

"Elegant," he amended, a smile naturally growing on his face. "She's just so smart and independent. She doesn't need anyone else, like a rose. She's amazing."

"A rose," Marinette repeated. It may have been a trick of the light, but the girl seemed to turn even redder.

"Too cliche?" He said sheepishly. "Alright, maybe more of a river."

"A...what?"

"A river," he said again. His eyes softened as he spoke, his pose more relaxed. Without thinking, he continued. "A river is always flowing, always moving. Gentle, yet strong. You can try to falter a river, but you can never truly break it. It's as constant as time itself and is often taken for granted, yet everywhere it flows, life fills the air as if its very breath draws nature out of hiding. It calls the light from the skies and the seeds from the earth. A river is independent, yet so many depend on it. It never grows arrogant, only more beautiful as it guides more and more along its path. And I think that's more beautiful than any rose can ever dream to be."

As soon as he finished speaking, Adrien blushed. He didn't mean to say all that; heck, he didn't even know where that all came from. It just...happened. In front of his classmate, no less. She probably thought that he a dork now. If he didn't know better, he'd think that there was some akuma subtly using its powers on him. It came so naturally in front of Marinette, almost as if she was the one meant to hear it.

He shook his head. No, he just got carried away. Sometimes, the Chat part of him came out when he let his guard down. The one who was meant to hear that was Ladybug, not Marinette. In fact, he'll make sure to tell Ladybug this later, the one who it was really meant for.

"Sorry, I just kept rambling," he said, chuckling a little. He scratched the back of his head. "That was kind of awkward, wasn't it? Sorry I made you more uncomfortable."

"A-Ah, not at a-all," Marinette stammered, hastily waving aside his apology. Despite her words, her face was practically steaming now. He was sure that if he held a tomato next to her face, there'd be no difference in color. It was amusing, even a bit endearing in a way.

He was saved from replying as the waiter approached the table, two silver trays of food upon each arm.

"Pardon me," the man said, setting down his trays as he began unloading them. "Set B for the gentleman and set C for the lady, correct?"

Adrien nodded as the man finished and bowed.

"Enjoy your meal."

* * *

 **Author's Note:  
Wow, I was rewatching some episodes and I realized that Nino says "dude" a lot more than I remembered, hence the sudden change in his speech style from here on. I've decided to add an extra scene in the next chapter so the upcoming problem/conflict has been pushed back (was supposed to come in the next chapter, lol)**

 **Ah, also, this is a bit early, but I've created a poll on a sequel for this story on my profile. The story's main problem/solution hasn't been fully presented yet though, so the ending won't be for a bit more. I also meant for this story to be kind of like a slice of life story (plus superheros!) so there's no major dramatic battle or anything like that (sorry)**

 **Thank you for reading and reviewing!**

* * *

 **SailorMew4 - ;) Thank you for reading!**

 **Missdragongirl - Ahh thank you! Aha, I like Nath a lot as a character actually (so much potential!) so I accidently focused on him I hope this chapter wasn't too cheesy! Thank you for reading!**

 **Melancholy's Sunshine - Their peace won't last long :) Thank you for reviewing!**

 **CrazieAuthor - Mari's the very embodiment of awkwardness, haha. Thank you for reading!**

 **Fire and Flames - Thank you! I'm actually considering a parody of sorts after this is done with MariXNathaniel as the ship since they're so cute together**

 **Mayuralover - Gotta love that highschool feeling :3 Thank you for reading! :)**

 **The SkrillRider - Middle school class actually, although translations are unclear (late middle, early high school? It's a weird French thing lol) Ahh, it's only their first week in the class so I tried to keep it basic until later on Thank you for reading!**

 **PrincessGlitter - I may be considering it ;) Thank you for reading!**

 **Ladybug02 - Thank you! NathXMari is actually my ship so I'll probably make a spin off in the future where that is the main pair instead (like an alternate universe!)**

 **Liv - Thank you! I'm glad you like my writing :)**


	15. Chapter 14

**Ceramics Fact!**

 **Kiln firing temperatures are measured/referred to using the term "cone" For example, cone 10 is 2381°F/1305°C. The scale usually goes from cone 022 to cone 15 with cone 022 being the lowest (1094°F/590°C)**

* * *

"I'm home!" Marinette called out as they entered the bakery. Her father, Tom, looked up from the cash register and smiled.

"Welcome home," he greeted. As he caught sight of Adrien, his eyebrows rose slightly. "You brought a...friend home?"

"Yeah. You remember Adrien, right dad?"

"Of course. I couldn't forget his face if I tried," Tom said humorously. "Have you seen your _room_?" He spoke the last word meaningfully, giving his daughter a look.

"My room!" Marinette gasped. Spinning on her heels, she turned to face Adrien, a look of panic on her face.

"I'm going to, um, my room to, you know," she flailed her arms in a wide sweeping motion. "Clean?"

"Clean?" Adrien asked. He didn't take Marinette as a messy person. Her room was certainly clean the last time he came, did it change? "I don't mind if it's messy…"

"No, no, no, it's very messy. _Very_. Messy. Wait right back, I'll be right here. Er, wait right here, I'll be right back," she corrected, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"Uh, sure?" The words had barely left his mouth before the girl was dashing upstairs, leaving him in the bakery.

Tom shook his head. "That girl."

"Sorry?"

"Nothing, nothing. Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?" The man asked with a warm smile. He gestured to the store. "Feel free to have anything you'd like, on the house."

"Thank you, but we just ate," Adrien said, slightly regretful. As full as he was, anything from one of the most famed bakeries in Paris was tempting. He wondered if it would be rude to ask for something to take home later. Surely he could sneak a few cookies past father.

"Oh? Did you two go have lunch together?"

Adrien nodded, a small frown coming on as he remembered it.

The cafe was...a blunder on his part. Even he had to admit that. As soon as their food came, there was little talking, both of them choosing to focus on their food, only breaking the silence with some awkward small talk. Truth be told, he had a feeling that it was what he said about Ladybug that had brought on most of the awkwardness. He couldn't blame her either, even he was surprised by his own words. Strangely, she didn't seem as if she thought less of him in any way after his small speech. Rather than that, she seemed to have been lost in deep thought until they left. If her (small) smiles didn't seem so genuine on the occasions that they did talk, he'd have thought that she was thinking of the quickest way to casually ditch him.

If Tom noticed the boy's expression, he didn't say anything. Instead, he said, "Well, why don't you choose something for now? I can bring it up later as a snack. What are you two doing up there, anyway?"

"She's teaching me how to make charms," he explained. "The lunch was my way of thanking her."

Tom smiled humorously. "Don't you have enough charm already?"

"Uh...My father doesn't really buy me any charms...I think I only have one at home."

Tom laughed.

"Oh, Adrien. Hello," Sabine greeted, coming down the stairs. She came to stand by her husband, a smile on her face. "It's been awhile. How have you been?"

"Hello, Mrs. Cheng," Adrien replied politely. "I've been doing well, how about you?"

"Good, good. I was surprised Marinette brought you this time, I thought that she'd be bringing Nathaniel back again."

"Nathaniel...?"

"Oh, didn't Marinette tell you? He came over the other day. Such a sweet boy, he is."

"Nathaniel did?" Adrien frowned. He didn't think that those two were _that_ close. He'd always assumed that he was the only boy to have come over to Marinette's house. It was a silly assumption now that he thought about it. There was absolutely no reason for him to mind her having other guys over. But that didn't mean he had to like it, either.

"Yes...they were talking about something rather...interesting. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?" The woman studied him intensely.

"About what?"

"I'm back!" Marinette reappeared in the doorway, slightly breathless. "Oh, hi mom."

"No running down the stairs," Sabine chided.

Marinette nodded quickly, her pigtails bobbing. "Sorry."

"Did you finish cleaning your room? That was fast," said Adrien.

"A-Ah yeah. Anyways, let's go up." Marinette turned again, Adrien following behind her.

"I'll bring some snacks up later, okay?" Sabine called after the two.

Marinette groaned. "We just ate!"

"Well, Adrien might be hungry. There's a fresh batch of cookies that's baking right now. I'll bring them up later."

"Okay, okay," Marinette said exasperatedly, already halfway up the stairs.

"You don't like cookies?"

"H-Huh?"

"Cookies. You didn't want any sweets last time either," Adrien explained. "When I came over to practice, remember?"

"Er, well, that's not it. It's just, y'know, I thought that you didn't like, um, cookies." She turned to glance back, one hand on the ladder to her room.

Adrien grinned at her. "I love cookies."

"Really?" She couldn't hold back her surprise at this, and he couldn't blame her. Father had always kept a strict watch on his diet, she'd probably never seen him eat anything less than healthy before.

"Yeah. I've always have had a bit of a sweet tooth," he admitted. "Father doesn't like me eating those kinds of food though. How about you? What do you like to eat?"

"M-Me? C...Camembert?"

Adrien gave her a strange look. "Camembert?"

She blushed. "Too weird?"

"No, just...surprising. I didn't think that anyone else liked that stuff."

She looked at him curiously. "Do you like it?"

He pulled a face. "No. I don't dislike it, I guess. But it stinks."

"It doesn't smell _that_ bad."

"Try dealing with it every day," Adrien muttered, just low enough for her to not hear. Then, smiling, he said. "Why don't we go up now?"

She blinked at him, almost like she was dazed for a moment. Then she shook it off. "Ah, y-yeah. Let's go."

* * *

Either Marinette was a really fast cleaner, or she exaggerated how messy her room was. Not much had changed from the last time he was there; the room was as spotless as he remembered it. Maybe she had really high standards for neatness?

"Sorry I don't have too many colors," Marinette said apologetically. "I only have the basic colors, so if you want orange or something, we'll need to mix it…"

They sat at her table, her computer pushed back to make room for the two of them to work. She opened a small plastic box, which held various rectangular blocks of what looked like vibrantly colored clays. Each block was no larger than his palm, some of which were even smaller as pieces had been torn off. Underneath these were small blue plastic tools, each with a different shaped end. They vaguely reminded him of the tools they worked with only hours ago in the ceramics room. No wonder Marinette seemed familiar working with clay already.

Adrien smiled. "It's okay. I don't really need many colors. So how should I start?"

"What kind of design were you thinking of?"

"Would a ladybug be too simple?"

Marinette shook her head. "No. Starting off with anything more difficult would be hard, anyway. I'll make something with you."

"Another ladybug?" Adrien asked. "Are you a fan?"

She laughed. "You can say that. But no, not a ladybug. I'll make a black cat."

"Chat Noir?" Adrien furrowed his eyebrows. "Why Chat?"

"What would Ladybug be without Chat?"

"Well, I mean…" He gestured awkwardly. "She's Ladybug and he's just...Chat. Ladybug's the one who defeats the akumas and returns everything to normal. Most people don't think of Chat. he's just...there."

Marinette frowned at him, her lips pursed disapprovingly. The expression surprised him; this was probably the first time that he'd ever seen her make that face at him.

"Chat's m—Ladybug's partner, not her inferior. He's not just there, he works just as hard at capturing akumas and he's never once let her down. No one can ever replace Chat as her partner. Ladybug would never accept anyone other than him as her partner, even if she had the chance to. He's worth more than that, even if other people don't think so."

"I—But he only fights. He doesn't have the same powers or smarts that Ladybug does. In battles, it's always Ladybug who tells him what to do. Only Ladybug can catch the akumas."

"They just have different abilities. It doesn't make one of them less than the other," she pointed out. "You're good at modeling. I'm not. I'm good with arts and crafts, you're…getting there. But that doesn't make one of us better than the other, right?"

"I suppose… But why are you defending him so much?"

She huffed—another first for him. "It just annoys me when people brush off Chat as someone less than he's worth. Paris probably wouldn't still be here if it weren't for him. He's just as amazing as Ladybug."

He stared at her. That was probably the most adamant thing he'd ever seen her say. It was strange. He rarely saw her this passionate about anything other than fashion and hating Chloe. In fact, it was rare for him to see anyone defend Chat whenever this topic came up. A crush? He didn't take Marinette to be the kind of girl who would have crushes on people easily, but it wasn't a far stretch, he supposed. He's not to judge people's crushes anyways, not when his crush was also a superhero.

But a crush on Chat? Now that, he didn't know how to feel about. He could have sworn she seemed normal when he had interacted with her as Chat. Despite himself, he couldn't help but wonder. Would he date Marinette? Did he like her that way?

"W-We should get started," she mumbled, breaking him from his thoughts. She kept her gaze down as she rummaged in the small plastic box. Taking out the various tools, she placed them on the table before taking out three plastic wrapped blocks of clay—black, red, and green.

"It might feel a little weird at first since you're used to the clay we use at school," she said, peeling away the plastic. "And you might not be used to working on a small scale. But it's almost the same. The main difference is that you don't have to worry about this drying out."

"They don't dry out?" He asked, partly in surprise. "How do they get hard then?"

"We bake them," she explained. "I have a small oven in the kitchen we can use later. This clay also doesn't leave dust so you don't have to worry about breathing in anything weird. Here, this should be enough red for you. How big do you want to make yours?"

"Not that big, I don't want to use too much of your clay," Adrien said, smiling.

"A-Ah if it's you, it's okay."

"Huh?"

She blushed. "I mean, I don't mind. Since I don't use you that often."

"Uh…"

" _It_. I don't use this kind of _clay_ often," she corrected, her face growing redder.

He laughed. "It's fine. A small keychain is nice. I don't want it to be too noticeable in case I mess up."

"I don't think you're that bad…"

He grinned. "Not as bad as Nino, you mean."

"Nino could use some practice," she admitted. She tore off a piece of black clay, and from that, she tore off an even smaller piece. "But no one starts off with a lot of skill. Most people aren't that great at this kind of thing."

"Yeah, I guess. We can't all be like Nathaniel," Adrien said, half-jokingly as he took the offered piece of black.

She slightly tensed at his words. "Yeah…"

Noticing this, Adrien glanced at her curiously.

"Do you not like Nathaniel?"

"I don't...dislike him," she said slowly, placing her clay pieces on the table.

"But…?"

"It's...complicated."

"I'm a good listener."

"It's not that it's a long story or anything. It's hard to explain it. Or rather, I can't explain it," she said apologetically, holding her elbows. She was frowning again, although he didn't seem to be the reason why this time.

"I thought that he was your friend? Isn't that why he came over?"

"What?" Her expression changed again, puzzled this time. Another expression he hadn't seen before.

"Your mom mentioned that Nathaniel came over," he explained. "I was surprised since I didn't know that you two were so close."

"We're not. He just showed up."

"He...what?"

Marinette sighed. "It's hard to explain. But he basically found out about something about me and confronted me about it."

"What?" Adrien asked, partly in alarm. "Blackmail?" He never took Nathaniel of all people to be that kind of person, but if what Marinette was implying was true…

"No, no," Marinette said quickly, waving her hands in front of her. "It was mainly my fault. I kept ignoring him when he tried to talk to me so he had to resort to coming here to get me to talk to him."

"He just showed up at your _house_?" Isn't that a bit...stalkerish?"

She laughed. "It's not exactly a secret where I live. My family does run a bakery after all."

"I suppose…"

"Besides, I was a jerk to him. But we're okay now," she said reassuringly, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ears. She picked up her piece of clay and began rolling it into a tiny sphere. Adrien began doing the same.

"Are you sure? What if he blackmails you? You're not doing anything illegal, are you?"

"What would you consider illegal?"

"..."

She smiled. "I promise it's not anything you would disapprove of."

"Is that a _yes_?" Adrien asked in disbelief. He was just learning new things about this girl by the _minute_ now. How had he never noticed her as anything more than just one of his classmates before?

"It's not that it's illegal, I think. It's just not...in the law exactly? The law never really anticipated this, if that makes sense."

"That makes absolutely no sense."

"It's...unconventional."

He made a disapproving face at her. "Do your parents know at least?"

"No."

"So it's a bad thing?"

"No."

"But you can't tell your parents about it?"

"No."

"Marinette," he said, exasperated. "Is it safe at least?"

"W-Well…"

" _Marinette_." He had half a mind to come back later, as Chat, to check up on her. He really didn't take Marinette to do anything reckless, but then again he never really paid too much attention to her. He'd always assumed that he didn't like him since she used to always act strange so getting closer to her wasn't really a priority for him. In fact, if he had known about this half a year earlier, he wouldn't have cared too much. If anything really bad happened, he would most likely resolve it with Ladybug as Chat. That was how these things usually ended. But now, the idea of her potentially being in danger bothered him. A lot.

Especially if she had a potential stalker.

"I-It's fine. Don't worry." She was looking away again, down at her hands. A dark blush tinted her cheeks, her stray hairs fallen from their place again to barely cover her eyes. Her secret wasn't that embarrassing, was it?

He hid a sigh. Instead, he smiled. "If you insist. So about this charm making…"

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Watashi no tanjoubi desu! I don't remember how Marinette's mom was addressed in the show, but married women in Chinese culture usually keep their last name according to my mom (hence why I had Adrien address her as "Mrs. Cheng")**

 **I'll begin adding a ceramic fact to chapter beginnings from now on, feel free to correct me if I happen to get something wrong!**

 **Thank you for reading!**

* * *

 **Miraculerauslly - Ahh I felt it was too cheesy so I was embarrassed . It almost didn't make it into the chapter, haha… Thank you for reading!**

 **Melancholy's Sunshine** **\- Poor boy's going through something of a cultural shock lol. Thank you for reading!**

 **SailorMew4** **\- Haha, I had to make Adrien more likable than Nathaniel. Thank you for reviewing!**

 **Maja Zlindra - Thank you for reading! :)**

 **mayuralover** **\- Thank you! It's kind of too cheesy for my taste, actually, haha… Thank you so much for reading! :)**

 **FicsFromAnAnbuNinn - Thank you! I figured I gotta make him like "Marinette" as much as he likes "Ladybug" haha**

 **Luiz4200 - Gotta love the oblivious rich kid. Thank you for reading, as always!**

 **Clarisa - Hmm, if you have an account, you can send people private messages (called PM) which are usually found if you click on a username… I just don't want to accidentally give out spoilers for others by replying here, haha. Thank you for your review though! I was really touched that you thought so much about my chapters :)**

 **Swirlspot - Ooh, I haven't read that yet; I'll have to give it a read once I get some time. Thank you for reading!**

 **The Lonely Crouton - Oblivious child is oblivious lol. Thank you for reading!**

 **SilverStarWing - Thank you! I hope this chapter didn't let you down :)**


	16. Chapter 15

**Ceramics Fact!**

 **Celadon glaze is a glaze originating from China whose color can vary from a bright green to a (greenish) grey depending on the iron content from the region from which the glaze was made as well as the kiln firing process. The most generally desired outcome was the jade color, of course, as it resembled jade stone the most.**

* * *

Marinette sighed, twirling the small black cat charm between her fingers. Tikki sat contently on her shoulders, as was usual the hour before their nightly patrol, munching on a cookie as the kwami watched her. She leaned back in her chair.

"Tikki, I'm an idiot."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Marinette. I don't think it was that bad," Tikki said encouragingly, wiping a crumb off her face. The kwami looked at it thoughtfully for a second before popping it into her mouth. "Adrien looked like he had a good time."

"But I was so _awkward_ ," she groaned, pulling her legs up as she pushed away from her desk. She put her head between her knees. "What was I thinking, telling him all that? Now he probably thinks I'm doing something illegal _and_ that have a crush on Chat."

" _Do_ you have a crush on Chat?" Tikki asked, tilting her head.

"What? No! He's my partner and very good friend. Nothing more," Marinette said adamantly, making a face at the small charm in her hand. Its green eyes stared back at her. "I don't even know who he is."

"Well, what's wrong with Chat?"

"Nothing's wrong with Chat. I trust him. It's just…"

"It's just that you're too obsessed with Adrien?" Tikki supplied, taking another bite out of her cookie.

"I'm not obsessed with Adrien," she protested. The kwami gave her an unconvinced look. "...that much," she added sheepishly.

The kwami giggled. "Why else would you have so many pictures of him?"

"I don't have that many," Marinette replied, glancing at the said pictures. She'd just replaced all of them after dinner less than an hour ago. A few had been crumpled from being roughly shoved into her drawer after her dad's not so subtle reminder of their existence, but she'd painstakingly taken the time to smooth each and every one of them before returning them to her rightful place on the wall. She made a mental note to figure out a way to hide them faster in case Adrien ever came over on short notice again; she'd rather crawl into a hole and die than have Adrien see the pictures of him on her wall.

A faint tap came from her window.

At first, she thought that she was just imagining it. But when Tikki ducked for cover inside her jacket, she tensed, just as the tapping came again. Tikki never hid unless there was a reason to. She dropped her Chat charm on her desk and for a moment, she considered grabbing her scissors as a makeshift weapon but decided against it. She was almost certain that she hadn't done anything to be the target of any akuma attack unless something had set Nathaniel off. But even then she doubted that he would try anything to seriously hurt her.

She got up and began cautiously approaching the window. At first glance, there seemed to be no one, save for her own reflection in the glass, but as her eyes adjusted she realized that a pair of very green, and very real eyes were staring back at her.

" _Chat Noir_?"

The cat grinned at her. He pointed up, winked at her, and leaped up, disappearing from sight.

She frowned slightly. What was Chat doing here? Quickly climbing up the ladder to her bed, she unlatched the trap door leading to her roof balcony. She'd barely opened it when it was lifted open for her, revealing none other than a grinning Chat.

"Good mewning, care to let a poor cat in?" He purred, leaning on the propped up door.

"Only if you stop with the puns," she replied automatically. But she scooted out of the way, allowing him to swing into the room. Avoiding the bed completely, he swung right over the ladder and landed gracefully on her room floor. Show off.

"Why are you here?" she asked, latching the trap door to the roof once more. "Not that I'm not flattered, of course."

"Thought that I should check in. It's been awhile since the Evillustrator, and a little kitty told me that you were caught up in a couple more akuma attacks since then," he said, leaning on his staff. He studied her as she climbed down.

"You're worried I'm traumatized?" She laughed at the idea. If only he knew.

"Purrhaps. Can't have a traumatized lady running around now, can we?"

"Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm not that weak," she replied, rolling her eyes as she took a seat in her chair again. She turned it so that she faced Chat, but noticed his gaze no longer focused on her. Instead, it had drifted to something behind her, his face a mixture of both surprise and amusement.

"I take it that you're a fan of Adrien Agreste?" he teased, nodded at the various pictures scattered across her wall. She blushed.

"I-I like his work!" she said quickly. "That's all! Since he's a model and all that...Totally not cause I like him or anything, haha."

"Oh really?" He smirked at her. "You should be careful then, some people might just get the wrong idea, you know."

She scowled, her face still bright red. "No one will get the wrong idea as long as you don't tell anyone."

He laughed as he held up his hands in front of him. "This cat's lips are sealed."

"Didn't I tell you to stop with the cat puns?"

"You wound me. I personally think that my puns are amewsing."

"Mhm. It's a shame that everyone doesn't share your sense of humor."

He pouted. "I knew that Ladybug wasn't a fan, but I was hoping that you'd understand at least. You were my Ladybug for a day, after all."

"Oh? When was that again? I don't seem to remember."

"Shall I give you a reminder than?" He tilted his head, a playful smirk on his face. She regarded him warily.

"What do you mean?"

"What do you say to an all mew tour of Paris—night edition!" He gave a grand wave of his baton. Marinette raised her eyebrow, unimpressed.

"Don't you, I dunno, have to be somewhere soon?" It was a valid point; she was waiting for their nightly patrol when Chat arrived. Unless he was planning on skipping for the first time tonight. I was unlikely, she knew, Chat never skipped a patrol. Rain or shine, he was always there, usually even arriving before she did. He never let her down before.

"Well...I _do_ have a patrol later on…"

She smiled.

"So how about I bring you along? That way, you can meet _both_ of Paris's superheroes on the same day," he said grinning, watching her expectantly. Her smile froze. "What do you think about that?"

"Oh…" She forced out a laugh, her pulse picking up as she thought of an excuse. She silently cursed the cat. "I, uh, I'm flattered! But I have this science test tomorrow that I _really_ have to ace and…"

Chat frowned. "A science test?"

She nodded enthusiastically and, hopefully, convincingly. "Yeah! I'm not really good at science and all that so I gotta study…"

He quirked an eyebrow. "Really? You're sure you have a test tomorrow?"

She nodded again, her hands drifting up to hold her elbows as she fought the urge to avoid his gaze. Still, he looked unconvinced. He seemed to think for a second, his head slightly tilted to the side. His tail swished.

Then he flashed her a mischievous grin. "Would you like some studying help then? I am pretty good at science, if I do say so myself."

She laughed. "I didn't know being a hero included tutoring."

"What can I say, I'm full of surprises," he said, amusement in his voice. "Besides, I can say the same for you. So? What do you say? Are you up for some tutoring for this test?" He lightly stressed the last word.

She leaned back, a smile still fixated on her face. She didn't bother to answer his question. Instead, she asked, "Chat, why are you really here?"

He spread his hands innocently. "I told you, didn't I?"

"Well, yes. But why are you _really_ here? I'm not the only one who has been part of multiple akuma attacks. So what's up?"

Smiling, he twirled his baton. "Was I that obvious?"

"Yes," she deadpanned. He grinned at this.

"Ouch. I wasn't completely lying, you know. I was a little worried that there might be something up with you. You haven't been up to no good, have you?"

"Me? How rude," she said, pretending to be insulted as she held a hand to her chest. "What kind of person do you take me for?"

"For starters, definitely not the sarcastic type until now," he replied. His baton came to a stop. "Can't a cat worry a little?"

"Chat, I'm _fine_. Promise," she said, crossing her legs as she sat up a little straighter. She didn't really know what she had done to cause Chat to worry. Even as Ladybug, she hadn't done anything that would be considered "no good." Well, at least she didn't think she did. "What made you think that?"

"Oh, just something I heard," he said vaguely, waving the question aside. "Thought I'd check up on you juuuust in case. Wouldn't want you to accidentally turn into an akuma. Now that would be a _cat_ astrophe. I would hate to have to fight you."

"Why, afraid you'd lose?" she teased. "I think I'd make a pretty strong akuma. Might even end up winning against you."

He was already shaking his head before she finished speaking. "You wouldn't stand a chance against Ladybug. She'd have you back to normal in no time, trust me."

"Mmm, I doubt that. I think it'd be a disaster if I was akumatized. Probably the hardest akuma that you'll ever have to face. There are many things that even Ladybug can't do."

"Oh, I think she can handle it. It's not just strength she has. She's smart too." He lightly tapped his baton on his head, a confident grin on his face. "She'll think of something, trust me. She's never let me down once, even when I have."

"You?" She couldn't hide the surprise from her voice. "What do you mean?"

"Marinette, if I listed all the times and ways she's saved me while I was being useless, we'd be here all night," he said, his tone serious for once. Then he smiled again. "She's amazing, you know. I'd spend _all_ my nine lives with her, no joke."

Her heart skipped a beat. "Really?"

"Really," he confirmed, nodding, He scratched the back of his head absentmindedly. "But I heard that there is a certain rumor going on around about me being a flirt. That's probably why she doesn't take me seriously. Probably"

No kidding, Marinette thought dryly. "Maybe."

He laughed. "Who knows? Maybe it's better this way. I wouldn't want to scare her away with my stunning good looks."

"Mhm. Stunning."

"I hope I didn't disappoint you," he said, winking. "But this cat's heart is saved for another."

"Oh please. Don't be so full of yourself."

He smirked. "It's not arrogance if it's true."

"Nope, pretty sure that's still considered arrogance."

"Even if I have the skills to match my looks?"

"In that case, you wouldn't need to brag," Marinette said, pulling her legs up onto her chair. "Skill speaks for itself."

Chat frowned at her words. He started to open his mouth, as if to say something but closed it instead. Shaking his head, he smiled.

"I suppose that's true," he said. "Well, if you don't need help studying, then I guess I'll be off. I just wanted to check up on you. See if you needed any help with anything. Just in case you had anything bothering you...like a stalker?"

"Chat, you literally just randomly showed up at my window at night. The closest thing I have to a stalker right now is you."

"It's not stalking if it's done out of concern!" he protested. She stood up.

"Pretty sure that can still be considered stalking," she teased. "What would Ladybug think?"

"That I'm the cat's meow. As usual," he replied smoothly.

"Right."

Chat rolled his eyes.

"Fine, I'll stop pestering you. Don't want you to fail this science test of yours tomorrow," he said, poorly hidden bemusement on his face. It was almost as if he was smiling at an inside joke. He made his way to the ladder.

"I'll be sure not to," she said, following him up the ladder. He paused at the top, extending his baton to unlatch the lock on the trapdoor before pushing it up as he stood. He was careful to not step on her bed as he leaps over the mattress and swung himself onto the balcony.

She peered up at him, not bothering to go onto the roof herself. He grinned down at her, his baton already ready to launch him away.

"You're pawsitive you're okay?"

"Chat, I _promise_ you'll be the first person I tell if I run into any kind of danger." As Marinette, anyways, she added silently. "Now get going before Ladybug wonders where you are."

"I'm going, I'm going," he laughed. "Night, purrincess."

"Goodnight, Chat," she said, smiling. She waited until he had left before reaching up and pulling the door closed and firmly latching it. Tikki flew out of her jacket.

"A house call from Chat?" Tikki giggled. "Maybe he has a crush on you."

"Oh please, that cat? He's just a flirt," she said dismissively, climbing down the ladder.

"A flirt wouldn't bother dropping by out of worry," Tikki said, settling on her usual spot on Marinette's shoulder. "Don't you think that he's nice?"

"Of course I think he's nice, Tikki. He's my partner, after all," she replied, taking a seat on her computer chair again. She pulled her legs up again. "And I trust him. Just…not with refraining from flirting with every girl he meets."

She picked up her Chat charm once again, idly turning it in her fingers. The charm had actually turned out pretty decent for someone who hadn't used polymer clay in years. Even Adrien's Ladybug charm had turned out nice and it complemented her Chat charm perfectly. Maybe adding a grin would have been nice, she mused. Chat certainly seemed to be wearing one half the time.

"Still, don't you think he's a little sad?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, glancing at the kwami. As best as she could, anyway. She never completely got used to glancing down at her shoulder whenever Tikki sat there. "He seemed normal to me."

Tikki shook her head. "I know. But with what he said about letting you down…didn't that kind of seem sad?"

"Chat? Sad?" The words felt strange together. "Why would he be sad?"

"Well…maybe sad isn't the right word. Insecure?"

"Insecure?" Now that was a word she would never have associated with Chat. It seemed laughable to even consider it. And yet…it wasn't laughable. She frowned.

As Ladybug, she was always confident. For the most part. Confident in her abilities, confidence in her judgment, and confident in her smarts. So confident in fact, that it could almost be considered a flaw at times. Even she had to admit that. On the other hand, her civilian form hesitated where Ladybug would not. Sure, not all the time, but definitely not the same as when she had a mask on. Even when facing Adrien, she always found it a little easier as Ladybug. Excuses were easier to come up with behind a mask. Authority was easier to assume as a superhero. There was a difference between being "Marinette" and "Ladybug," even if Tikki insisted otherwise. It was more like parts of her personality were being highlighted depending on who she was acting as.

What if it was the same with Chat? She couldn't deny that she wasn't curious about his identity in the past. She had mentally run through a list of people she knew who had a flirting tendency. She never did find anyone who seemed to match the same traits that Chat had. But what if that was wrong? What if he wasn't like that as a civilian and was instead like her, someone who showed a different face without the mask? Literally.

Even the most confident of humans have moments of insecurity. Chat can't be an exception.

Besides, she'd messed up once this week already from not listening to Tikki.

"What do you think is bothering him?" she finally asked. Tikki shrugged.

"It could be a lot of things. I can't say for sure, Marinette. But if I had to guess…I don't think he's as confident as you are."

"In skills?" Marinette said in surprise. "But he's my partner. I couldn't have done half the things I've done without him."

"Chat isn't able to purify akumas without you," Tikki reminded gently. "That's already a huge difference in ability. And even in fighting, you are usually the one who comes up with the plans. He follows you without hesitation. It's no wonder that he feels slightly inferior."

"But…" Marinette frowned. She'd never thought of Chat like that even once. He was her best guy friend, even without them knowing each other's personal identities. He helped her and she helped him. Right? "Do you really think that's it?"

"I don't think that's all of it," Tikki admitted, shifting a bit. "I don't think he's lying about being serious with you."

"You mean his flirting?" Marinette turned slightly pink at the words. She'd always easily brushed off the comments, telling herself that he wasn't serious and therefore they were meaningless. In her defense, what was she supposed to think? Flirts were made infamous by countless movies and books; plus, it was easier to ignore the comments. Besides, who would like _her_?

"Yes," Tikki said nodding.

"Chat. Has an actual crush."

Tikki nodded again.

"On _me_?"

"I think so," Tikki confirmed. She patted Marinette on the shoulder. "I didn't want to bring it up since you can be…you know…awkward with this kind of thing."

"But, he's Chat! He's my best friend!" Not to mention her partner.

"Can you see yourself liking him?"

"N—" she stopped. Tikki's words from earlier echoed in her mind. Was she really too obsessed with Adrien? She didn't think she was blind to others. She was just…fixated on one person at one time. Okay, scratch that. Maybe she _was_ too obsessed with Adrien to consider others. But _Chat_? "Is this why you asked me about this earlier?"

"I have reasons," Tikki said simply. She flew off Marinette's shoulder, settling onto her desk instead. The kwami peered up at her. "But the point is, what are you going to do about Chat? We can't just leave him like this. Don't you want to help him?"

"I do…" Marinette said slowly. "But what can I do? He's already my partner. If that doesn't prove his worth, what will?"

"Maybe you just need to remind him of it," Tikki said, a smile on her face. She flew off once more, zipping over to a drawer. She struggled with the handle for a second before flying into the drawer and pulling out a box.

"We still have time before the patrol."

* * *

"I have to say, my lady, your hot chocolate is one of the best highlights of my day," Chat said, cupping his mug. He gave the drink a gentle blow, sending steam off into the night air. "I was a little worried when you were late."

"Oh please, I was only late by a few minutes," Ladybug replied, setting down the thermos. She was careful to keep the container well away from the rooftop edge before lifting her own cup of the sweet drink and taking a sip of it appreciatively. They'd been drinking hot chocolate as a small tradition after patrols nowadays, courtesy of Ladybug. She didn't risk bringing any pastries in fear of the baked goods being too tied to her civilian identity, but she was sure to always supply refreshments after each nightly patrol after Chat mentioned that he usually wasn't allowed to have these kinds of drink at home.

"A few minutes is an eternity without you," he said, grinning. She looked down at her cup.

"Chat, about that…"

"I know, I know," he said, holding up his hands. Or, in this case, a hand and a mug of hot chocolate. "Less flirting, gotcha. But it's hard to teach an old cat new tricks, you know."

She giggled. "That saying only applies to dogs. Besides, aren't you a teenager too? Not even an old one."

"My lady, I could be in high school for all you know," he joked. She shook her head with a smile.

"Nah. No high schooler acts like you do."

"What, charming?"

"You wish."

"Hurtful, my lady. Have some pity on your poor partner," he said, taking a sip with a smile.

She hesitated. "Chat."

"Mhm?"

"You do know that you're my partner, right?"

"Really? I thought I was just stalking you for the past year."

"Chat, I'm serious," she said, making a face. He looked at her curiously.

"Yeah, I know."

"That you're my _equal_ partner," she stressed. He cocked his head at her, waiting for her to go on. Curiosity danced in his eyes. She lifted her cup to her face, suddenly feeling awkward. "Okay? And I know that I brush you off sometimes but you're still my best guy friend. I care about you."

"Where is this coming from, my lady?"

She took a sip before answering. "I realized that some people saw you as just my sidekick or something," she mumbled. It wasn't exactly a lie. "I was a little worried you believed that."

"You were worried about me?" he teased. "How cute."

She lightly elbowed him. "Don't get used to it."

"Aw, is my lady a tsundere?"

"I don't even know what that means," she said, rolling her eyes. She wedged her cup between her thighs before reaching over, taking the bag that she normally carried her thermos in before digging around in it for a little bit. Chat watched her curiously over the rim of his mug. "But I made you something so that you don't feel, um, down or anything."

Finally finding what she was looking for, she pulled out the items out of the bag. Chat's eyes widened as he caught sight of what exactly was in her hands and he choked on his drink, turning away as he started coughing violently.

"Chat? Chat, are you okay?" she asked worriedly, taking his mug from his hand. "I don't know how to perform CPR properly so please don't die."

"D—" He coughed again, his eyes watering, He gave the items a look of disbelief, one hand over his mouth before his eyes flickered to her and back. "D-Did you make those?"

"These?" She held up one of the Chat charms with a frown. Were they ugly or something? She didn't think that they looked _that_ bad. Maybe suddenly giving him something like this was too weird? "Yes, why? They're not that ugly, are they?"

"N-No! It's just…" He looked at her with incredulity. " _Ladybug_?"

"Chat, If you don't want one then I'll just keep them both." She handed him his drink back, which he accepted more so out of reflex than anything else. He kept his eyes on her, the same look of pure surprise on his face. And a little...glee? "Careful, if your eyes get any wider, they'll fall right out of your head," she said dryly.

" _Ladybug_ ," he repeated. Then he shook his head and grinned. Still, he didn't make a move to take the offered charm. In fact, he seemed to ignore it completely. "Wow."

She gave him a weird look. "Did you hit your head earlier or something? Do you want one or…?"

"Uh, y-yeah. _You_ made these?" he asked again.

"Well, yeah. I was making charms earlier today anyway and had some extra time before patrol so I figured I might as well make one for you too. My kwami mentioned that I should remind you that you're my partner and stuff so I made another Chat charm. I was going to make a Ladybug one for you, but since you're a guy I thought you might be a little embarrassed to carry around a Ladybug charm like how most guys are so I made you a Chat one instead," she explained. She handed him one. "The one with a green strap is yours, the red is mine. Don't bother looking for mine on a bag somewhere during the day though, I'm going to be keeping it in my room."

He didn't answer. Instead, he was intensely studying his charm, an ever-growing grin on his face. He shook his head. "Wow."

"You know, if I knew giving you things would make you this happy, I would have done so a long time ago," she commented, watching him with slight amusement. Tikki was right, maybe this was what Chat needed. She couldn't remember the last time she made someone this happy with such a simple gift. Satisfied, she finished off the rest of her hot chocolate before standing up. "Hurry up with your drink, I have to wake up a little early tomorrow. Although with my luck, I'll probably oversleep anyways. Um, try not to choke this time though," she added, frowning a little at him. She wasn't kidding when she said that she didn't know proper CPR. Would you even use CPR on a choking person?*

"S-Sure…" He downed the rest of the drink in one gulp, his eyes never leaving her as she stuffed her cup into the bag, along with the thermos before taking his empty mug and throwing it in with it. She tied the bag close before looping it twice around her arm.

"See you tomorrow night, Chat. Goodnight." she flashed him a grin, her yo-yo already in hand. Still staring at her, he started slightly at her voice.

"N-Night," he said, just a second too late. She'd already left, the only trace being the faint scent of hot chocolate on the night breeze.

"…Marinette."

* * *

Marinette stared at the bottom of her bowl, a frown on her face. The metal tip of the needle tool hovered above the second to last number in the date partially etched just below her name. She blew a stray hair out of her face.

"Morning, Marinette," a familiar voice greeted her. She looked up and smiled, lowering the bowl a bit.

"Hey, Nino. You're here early."

"Same for you. How long were you here for?" he asked, pulling up the stool across from her before shrugging his bag off onto the floor next to him.

"Um, not long. An hour?"

"Dude, an _hour_ early?" Nino said, raising an eyebrow. "What's the occasion?"

"I wanted to work on my piece," Marinette explained, returning her focus to her tea bowl. She began the last number.

"You know that the deadline isn't for like, a week, right?"

"I know. I just want to…finish early?"

"Uh, you are aware that you're probably the first one to finish this piece in this class, right? Well, one of the first, anyways," he added, looking over her shoulder. "Good morning, Nathaniel."

The chair next to her scrapped against the floor slightly as Nathaniel sat down. A slight twinge of disappointment swept through her. She'd been hoping that Adrien would sit there. She'd even saved one of the better stools for him. Then again, he'd probably opt to sit next to Nino even if he had arrived earlier than Nathaniel.

"Uh, good morning, Nino," he mumbled. He glanced at Marinette. "M-morning, Marinette."

"Morning, Nathaniel," she greeted. She was careful to keep her tone neutral and her gaze fixed on the bottom of her piece. She knew that the artist had overheard about being with Adrien yesterday and he hadn't said much since then for the rest of the class. Not that he spoke much in the first place, but from then on he had limited speech to one worded answers and had instead all but trained his attention solely on his tea bowl. As a result, he was the farthest along in the project out of anyone in the class, as well as the best, earning various praise from Ms. Ro.

Which was the whole reason for her coming early. She hadn't said anything to anyone, not even to Tikki, but _she_ was usually the one who was deemed most artistic in classes. As petty as it was, it did hurt her pride a little coming in second place. At least now, she was caught up with him in terms of progress.

She turned her bowl over, shaking out the etched-out clay. A small plastic food container was gently placed on the table next to her.

"What's that?" Nino piped up, gesturing to the container. "Lunch?"

"No…" Nathaniel gingerly pried open the plastic lid, revealing a mess of soft plastic inside. He peeled back the layers of the bag. "I, um, took my piece home yesterday so I could work on it some more at home…"

Marinette looked at his bowl in disbelief. Son of a tomato, his piece was pretty much done. She resisted the urge to grit her teeth. Two perfectly matching maple leaves slightly popped out of the bowl on opposite sides, backgrounded by an engraved collage of miniature maple leaves. Unaware of the fuming girl next to him, Nathaniel continued taking out a handful of tools out of his container before finally setting it to the side.

"Good morning, guys," Adrien said cheerfully, coming up from behind them. As Marinette looked up, he caught her eye and grinned. She almost dropped her bowl right then and there. "Morning, Marinette."

"M-morning," she stammered, quickly looking down again. Her heart raced. That was unexpected. They were friends, but he normally didn't greet her like that. And the grin was new. Did he really like his Ladybug charm that much?

Next to her, Nathaniel kept his gaze down and his face neutral. Under the table, his hands had clenched into fists. Adrien made his way to the stool next to Nino, his bag strap already in his hand ready to be placed down. Just as he started to pull the wooden stool back, however, he was stopped by a voice.

"Adrien?" Ms. Ro said. Adrien turned, slight surprise on his face.

"Yes, Ms. Ro?"

"Actually, today you'll be sitting with someone else," Ms. Ro said, her tone gentle yet firm. She placed a light hand on his shoulder.

"Um…sorry?" His eyebrows drew together into a small frown of confusion. "Why?"

"We have a transfer to the class," the teacher explained. "She requested sitting next to you since you two know each other. The principal talked to me about it yesterday."

"Who?" The bell rang, signaling the start of class. A shrill voice pierced the air.

"Oh, Adrikins~!"

* * *

 ***If they become unconscious, then yes you do. But remove the darn thing first, don't CPR that piece of food further down.**

 **Author's Note:**

 **SEASONTWOSEASONTWOSEASONTWO**

 **Sheit, I need to finish my stories.**

 **Thank you so much to reviewers!**


	17. Chapter 16

**Ceramics Fact!**

 **Different kinds of clay shrink a different amount in the kiln while being fired and while drying. Shrinkage rates can be anywhere from ~5% to ~15% depending on the type of clay and in my experience, the typical beginner ceramic studio mainly uses clay with roughly about 10% shrinkage.**

* * *

"Oh, _Adrien_ , isn't this perfect? I've, like, always wanted to take an art class with you!" Chloe giggled. Marinette didn't need to look over across the room to see that the girl was hanging off his arm like some blond leech, a sight that she refused to look at.

She found comfort in the fact that she wasn't the only one having to restrain herself from choking the wannabe princess though. Chloe had earned herself a small infamous reputation around the school, and even those who didn't know her before now knew _of_ her at least. After Chloe had arrived and dragged poor Adrien off to the far corner table and kicked out the student sitting there, it wasn't long before more than a few people were throwing dirty looks her way. No one could ignore her shrill voice; even Ms. Ro had retreated to the backroom within minutes of class starting.

"Dude, remember when this class was peaceful?" Nino asked, shaking his head. Unlike Marinette, he gave their table a glance now again, partly in annoyance and partly in pity for Adrien.

Unlike Marinette and Nathaniel, Nino was still working on the basic shape of his bowl. It was actually this third try, the first two bowls having been scrapped within the first half of last class. His first try had been deformed, with some parts of the bowl nearly three times as thick as other parts. His second try had been a little more successful, save for the fact that he had forgotten to take the depth into account and put his thumb right through the bottom.

"The pre-Chloe era, you mean?" Marinette grumbled, before giving the inside of her bowl a gentle blow to clear away the carved clay.

"Yup. Good times." Nino glanced at the other table, just as Chloe gave a high pitched laugh. "How long do you think she'll last here?"

"A week," Marinette answered immediately. Her only comfort other than Adrien's clear reluctance of being dragged away was that Chloe would never last in a ceramics class. Mayor's daughter or not, the girl can't pass if she continued to refuse to touch the "dirty" clay.

"One week? That's a bit generous. I say three days, tops," Nino said, frowning at his piece. "Can you help me with this?"

"Sure, what's wrong?" She paused, looking up from her carving. Nino held his bowl out at her.

"My bowl's ugly."

"What's wrong _specifically_?"

He gave an annoyed gesture at his bowl. "Cracks won't go away. I wanna make my bowl thinner but if I keep going, the cracks just get bigger and bigger."

Marinette took the bowl from him. The clay was warm in her hands. She frowned. Nino couldn't work with this. Heck, she was pretty sure that even she couldn't save this piece.

"Nino, why is your bowl so...dry?"

"I dunno. It just happened?" Nino grinned sheepishly.

She shook her head disapprovingly. "That's probably why you have cracks. You should have mended them early on when they began forming."

"I got cracks because my clay was dry?" Nino frowned. "Did I wedge too long?"

"Um…" Marinette racked her head. She didn't remember how long Nino wedged his clay for exactly. "Maybe…?"

"You widened the bowl too fast," Nathaniel quietly interrupted. He'd stopped working on his piece. Like Marinette, he was almost done with his bowl and was actually adding the final touches to the etched maple leaves. Marinette sourly noted that he was even adding tiny details she had never thought of, such as veins in each of the tiny maple leaves. She resolved to add as much detail in her own piece.

"I...did?" Nino said, drawing his eyebrows together.

"You also worked on it too long," Nathaniel added, peering at the bowl through his bangs. Marinette offered the bowl to the artist, which he accepted after a moment of hesitation. He studied the piece, turning it in his hands.

"Cracks should be fixed as soon as possible if they form on the rim if you're doing pinch pot...You can tell how long you've been working on it by how warm the clay is. Working on it too long dries out the clay. If you went any longer, it would have been almost as dry as Marinette's bowl, and her bowl is leatherhard already," he explained quietly as he continued to study the bowl in his hand. It was almost as if he was speaking to himself, only remembering to explain as an afterthought. "At this point, you can try cutting off the rim and try to salvage as much as you can, but it'll be a little hard to mend all the cracks now since they're so big..."

He gently put the piece down, giving Nino a fleeting apologetic look. "...It'll be best if you started over."

Nino groaned. "Man, seriously?"

Nathaniel nodded. Nino sighed dramatically but took his piece without further complaint before walking over to the wedging table a couple of feet away from them. He dropped his piece into one of the two large buckets sitting next to the wedging plaster, the piece splashing a little as it broke the surface of the water before settling in with the other abandoned clay scraps.

" _Could_ you have saved it?" Marinette asked curiously.

Nathaniel glanced at her.

"...Maybe."

"Maybe?" Marinette echoed. She'd had deemed it a lost cause for sure. She knew that Nathaniel had supposedly had a bit of ceramic experience before, but...

"It would have been hard. And annoying. But it was doable," Nathaniel admitted. He shifted in his seat, the tips of his ears turning pink. He picked up his bowl.

"Oh."

The silence stretched between them. Marinette picked up her tool, etching to final word to the inside of her bowl.

"How was...yesterday? For you?"

Marinette tensed. Inwardly, she cursed him. Of course he had to make it awkward. When was Nino coming back?

"It was okay," she said cautiously. She didn't know where he was going with this, but she prayed that he wouldn't ask for details. The last thing that she needed was for him to get a little too jealous and attract an akuma.

He let out a breath, his eyes flickering close for a second. She watched him warily. Noticing her gaze on him, he gave her a small smile.

"I'm practicing," he explained quietly.

"Breathing?"

He smiled awkwardly, tilting his head so that his bangs fell in front of his eyes as he looked away. He fiddled with the tool in his hand.

"I'm trying to control my emotions better." When she gave him a blank stare, he added, "So that I won't get akumatized again."

"Akumatized?" she asked, still slightly confused. "Why…?"

"Yesterday, I was, um, almost akumatized," he admitted slowly, still looking away. He began working on his piece again, his movements a little stiffer than before. His ears were still scarlet red, his body tense. "I...I saw the akuma flying towards me this time."

"You _what_?!" she exclaimed. A couple students looked over curiously, causing her to duck her head a bit. "What?!" she repeated, quietly this time.

"Don't worry—I escaped," he said hurriedly. "I-I mean, not that you don't know that already since you're, you know—"

"How the heck did you escape?" she asked incredulously. She'd never heard of anyone escaping from an akuma. Hawkmoth almost always sent akumas after people once they were alone, and most people usually weren't even aware of one until it was too late.

"I...ran?"

"You _ran_?" She tried to imagine Nathaniel running from an akuma. Despite the small strength and agility that naturally came to people when they were akumatized, as a civilian, he didn't seem anything like the athletic type. In fact, he was usually one of the slowest runners in gym. She couldn't help but crack a small smile at the thought.

Guessing what exactly she was thinking, Nathaniel made a face. "It wasn't easy. But it gave me enough time to calm down," he mumbled.

"So it just went away on its own?"

He nodded.

She raised an eyebrow, impressed. "Wow."

He blushed. "So that's why I'm...doing this. If I get akumatized again, I'll put you in danger, right? Since I know, um, more now..."

"I…" She felt her face warm. To be honest, she never thought that Nathaniel would consider that for her sake, especially after she rejected him.

"Thank you."

He flushed quickly turning away to continue on his piece.

"Okay." Nino unceremoniously dropped his clay onto the table with a thud, startling both of them as he took his seat. "Wedged it as fast as I could. Which wasn't very fast. But, y'know, it's the thought that counts. So now it's...don't pinch pot too fast?"

"Don't widen it too fast," Marinette corrected. "But don't take too long either."

Nino sighed dramatically but took the piece in his hands anyway. He began smacking it with his palm, slowly shaping it into a rough sphere.

"Well, if I waste all of this class messing up, at least I'll have five more days to try again."

"Um...Four more days," Nathaniel said, pausing only for a moment. "It's best to add final touches while your piece is leatherhard. Especially if you want to carve details."

"And not including weekends, unless you wanna take it home," Marinette added.

Nino gave both of them a look, one after the other.

"I miss Adrien already."

* * *

"So?" Alya grinned at her, even before Marinette had sat down. "How was today?"

"Awful," Marinette groaned. "You won't believe who transferred into our class."

"What?" Alya blinked. That certainly wasn't the tone she was expecting. "Who?"

"Chloe."

" _What_?!"

"My reaction exactly," Marinette said, pulling out her books. She made a face. Chloe had kept up her actions throughout the whole class, even after Ms. Ro came out and told her to lower her voice and get started. Sure, the girl had lowered her voice, but she didn't make a single move to touch the clay, as far as Marinette could tell. By the end of the class, the piece of clay that Adrien had brought to the table for Chloe had remained untouched and forgotten. Poor Adrien didn't even seem to get much done on his own piece, with one of his arms being constantly tugged on by the girl.

"How?" Alya asked in disbelief. Then she grimaced. "Actually, nevermind that. I think I can guess how."

"Are we talking about Chloe?" Nino asked, plopping into his seat. He turned, resting his arms on their table. "Please tell me we're talking about Chloe."

"Yeah. Nino, how could you let her take Adrien away?!"

"Hey, wasn't my fault." He held up his hands in front of him. "You know how the girl is. She must have gotten someone to tell Ms. Ro to put her and Adrien together. You should have seen his face, he was _horrified_."

Alya laughed. "Adrien? Horrified? I almost wish I was there to see it."

"Yeah. I've never seen that face on him before. Poor guy, dude seemed so cheerful this morning before Chloe showed up too."

"What's your definition of 'cheerful'? He's _always_ smiling."

Nino shook his head. "Not that fake smile. Like, real smile. Y'know what I mean? Like they say people walk with a bounce in their step when they're happy, but I didn't think it was more than a saying until today. He walked with _all_ the bounce in his steps. His photographer would be over the moon if Adrien showed the same smile in his photoshoots."

"Maybe something good happened?" Alya suggested with a sly grin. She elbowed Marinette. "I heard that you two _did_ go on a date after school yesterday."

Marinette flushed. "It wasn't a date!"

"Mhm. Sure. So what happened?"

" _Nothing_ happened," she replied adamantly. "We had lunch and then we went over to my house. That's all."

"Are you sure?" Alya scooted closer to Marinette, her grin only getting wider. Marinette pushed her away.

"Alya, you'd be the very first person to know if anything happened."

"Not good enough. I need to know _as_ it happens. Whip out your phone and text me as he confesses," she joked.

Marinette rolled her eyes but smiled back. "Yes, because texting you is the first thing I'll think about if someone confesses to me."

"It should! I'm your best friend after all," Alya said, sticking her tongue out at the girl. "You have no secrets from me."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," she laughed. It was at that moment that Adrien walked in. Or, rather, when Chloe and Adrien walked in with Chloe still hanging onto the boy's arm and Sabrina dutifully following a few feet behind them. Marinette doubted that Chloe had ever let go of the model's arm for more than a few seconds since the beginning of school.

"—and you have _got_ to come! Daddy said that I could bring you and we'd be like, totally adorable together," Chloe cooed, stroking his arm. Nino pretended to gag at the sight, a face that went completely unnoticed by the girl.

"Chloe, I can't—"

"Too late! I already told him I was bringing a friend. It's, like, next Friday, okay? Make sure you wear something nice; we should totally match," she said, completely oblivious to the face Adrien made at her words. "Anyways, I'll text you more about this later, 'kay? And make sure to answer this time! You haven't been answering my texts!"

"I wonder why," Nino muttered. Alya stifled a laugh.

"Okay, okay," Adrien said, exasperated, prying the girl off of him. She blew him a kiss as he took his seat before snapping at Sabrina about touching up her makeup. When the two girls left the room, Adrien groaned, his head thudding onto the table. Both Marinette and Alya winced at the sound.

"Hey, you alright man?" Nino gave him a sympathetic pat. "She sounded worse than usual today. Not that we were eavesdropping, her voice just has this way of traveling."

Adrien gave a heavy sigh before lifting his head. He absentmindedly rubbed the spot where his forehead and met wood. "She wants me to go to a dinner with her."

"Next Friday, yeah. We heard," Alya said, pity in her voice. "My condolences."

"Yeah man, rest in peace. We won't ever forget you."

"I'm not dead _yet_ ," he said wearily, shaking his head a bit.

"Nah, you're just a dead man walking," Alya said, chuckling as she watched Adrien fall into a slouch with his head in his hands. "Try to have her not eat you alive. We'll pray for you."

"Praying won't save him at this point," Nino laughed. "And to think you were in such a good mood this morning too."

"I—" Adrien's head snapped up at this as if a sudden thought had struck him. He whipped around, startling Marinette so much that she gave a small yelp before blushing furiously. Ignoring the Alya and Nino's surprise, he smiled brightly at Marinette, causing the poor girl to blush even harder.

"That reminds me! Marinette, I need to talk to you. Alone. Is after school okay?"

"Wow, two days in a row?" Alya teased. "Careful, people might start thinking that you have a crush on her."

Adrien's ears turned light pink at Alya's words. This itself was immediately noticed by both Marinette and Alya. Adrien _never_ blushed. Not even that time he was told to do a kiss scene for that class film. Apparently, he was somewhat used to these kinds of situations while doing photo shoots or acting in front of the camera. On top of that, the boy was denser than anybody they knew when it came to romantic things. Him blushing could only mean one thing, and Alya was determined to confirm it.

"It's not like that!" he said defensively. However, his reply was just a second too fast to be convincing enough for Alya, and the girl grinned gleefully. Next to her, Marinette was on the edge of fainting right then and there, her face a fierce red as she tried to remember exactly how to think properly again.

"I'm just saying. It definitely wouldn't be a bad thing. I approve," Alya said. Her grin widened when his blush became just a tad darker at her words. Model or not, the boy wasn't exactly the perfect actor, it seemed. All he needed was just a little push.

Alya elbowed Marinette, hopefully knocking a bit of reality into the girl. She hadn't moved a bit since Adrien had asked her, with the only sign of life in the girl being her beet red face.

"So? Don't keep him waiting, Marinette. Answer him," she said, elbowing the girl a little harder. This seemed to do the trick; Marinette jolted at the touch.

"A-Ah, yeah! School. After. Yeah!" she squeaked.

Alya rolled her eyes. Time for another crash course on how to talk to Adrien normally during lunch. And just when she thought that they were done with those lessons too.

"Great. I'll, uh, see you then," he said, flashing her a smile. If it was possible, Marinette blushed even more.

"Y-yeah…"

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Jeremy Zag used Season Two Announcement!**

 **The attack was super effective!**

 **Author is filled with motivation!**

 **Writer's block has worn off.**

 **Author used Write!**

* * *

 **Thank you for reading and reviewing!**

Miraculerauslly - Muwahahaha! Can't have things good for too long :)

Guest(1) - Denial is a powerful thing :) Thank you for reading!

Joey - Your review surprised me—you're actually right about something to come, haha.

Jeff - Bitter beans are the best beans.

BFG - Right? Art is scary competitive at times lol.

ladybug002- Your review is priceless ;)

callmeakumatized - Ahaha, thank you!

fairydaisypou - Gotta throw Chloe in eventually lol

Guest(2) - Haha, yeah. I assumed people would figure out to do the maneuver first if the person was still conscious, but Google said to do CPR if the person fainted, hence the note. But hey, I'm no expert myself lol

MsBlackOut - Not the nails! *gasps in horror*

SweetWolfXD - Your review made me laugh, haha. Thank you! Here's another chapter :)

Luiz4200 - She wouldn't be Chloe if she didn't ;)

The Lonely Crouton - Thank you! And I love your username!

Guest(3) - Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah?

Golden Lunar Eclipse - I know the feeling! I actually had the same internal dilemma; I'm just gonna specifically state that this story is before season two, haha

mayuralover - Gotta have the downs where there are ups ;)M1ndb3nd - It's a good thing I have the next chapter out less than an hour after your review then, haha. I hope this chapter was okay!


	18. Chapter 17

"And that's why pressure and volume are inverse to each other," Ms. Mendeleiev finished sharply as she added the last chalk circle to her diagram. She dropped the nub of chalk onto the tray before turning and giving the class a stern look.

"Science test on Monday. Don't forget to study." The woman crossed her arms. "Class dismissed."

The whole class let out a small collective sigh of relief. Ms. Mendeleiev was infamous for springing pop quizzes on the class at the end of the day. Alya turned to Marinette, grinning knowingly as she elbowed her. Marinette made a face at her friend, automatically squirming away. Alya was seriously getting better at these elbow jabs.

Not one to be deterred, Alya was practically bouncing in her seat as she impatiently (and very obviously) watched Adrien put away his books.

Marinette chewed on her lip. Alya had dragged her through yet another crash course on talking to Adrien during lunch and although it did help, it did little to calm her nervousness. Her friend had reassured her that she should be fine now. It's been a good while since she's had her last word vomit around Adrien; the biggest problem now was stuttering. And after a whole hour of talking at a video of Adrien from various interviews and behind the scenes photoshoots, Alya deemed her normal enough to survive.

Barely.

There was no guarantee that Adrien was confessing or anything of the sort, Marinette knew, even if Alya was absolutely convinced that he was. In fact, she almost wished that he _wasn't_ going to confess because she was pretty sure that if he did then she would probably faint right there.

"Marinette? I have to go pick up my piece from ceramics first, is that okay?" Adrien turned, his bag slung over his shoulder.

"Um, y-yeah," Marinette said, quickly standing up.

"Great, I wanted to bring my piece home so I can actually get some work done on it," he explained with a smile, standing as well. "I didn't really get a chance to get much done today."

"I'd bet," Nino said, shaking his head. "If it makes you feel better, none of us really got much work done. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, see you tomorrow," Adrien said, smiling at his friend.

"Oh no you don't. _We_ have something to do," Alya said, grabbing onto Nino's shoulder strap just as he made to leave. He gave a small yelp of surprise as Alya turned, flashing a grin at Adrien and Marinette. "You two have fun. See you guys tomorrow."

"Uh, yeah. Bye," Adrien said. But the girl was already out the door with a very confused looking Nino in tow. He turned to Marinette, his eyebrow slightly raised. Marinette could only shrug awkwardly, not completely sure about her friend's behavior either.

"So shall we get going?" Adrien asked, already taking a step towards the door. Marinette nodded quickly.

"Yeah! I mean, yeah. C-Ceramics first, right?" Marinette said, following him out the classroom. Once they were outside, he slowed his pace, just enough so that they were walking side by side. She unconsciously slowed her pace even slower, just enough for it to not be noticeable. Many students hurried around them, their conversations surrounding the pair. But at that moment, everyone could have been screaming and she would have barely noticed. The main thing that she was hyperaware of was just how close Adrien walked to her, so close that she could have nearly sworn that he was doing it on purpose. She gulped. Despite what she and Alya had suspected earlier, it was hard to be certain. For all she knew, Adrien was probably just weirdly thrilled with his charm all of a sudden and just wanted to ask for more. She noticed his new Ladybug charm dangling from the strap of his bag earlier, maybe he wanted more for his phone or something. Yeah. That must be it.

She chewed on the corner of her lip.

Since school had just ended, there were still a decent number of students in the hall. Many were waiting for a club to start, while others stayed behind chatting with friends. But as the pair made their way towards the art wing, they began to pass fewer and fewer people. There weren't really many art clubs, and the ones that did exist usually weren't as far down the art wing as the ceramics room was. It didn't help that elective classes were spread throughout the first half of the school day; the only students in the rooms now were those who had returned to practice or, in their case, to pick something up.

"I have to use the bathroom first," Adrien said apologetically, as they turned into the art wing. Like most of the major areas in the school, the art wing had its own restrooms in order to stop students from spending too much time out of class during bathroom breaks. "Do you want to meet at the room?"

"S-Sure," she said. Adrien gave one last apologetic smile before ducking into the boy's restroom.

She might as well check on her own piece while she was there. She was just nearly done with the details on her piece, but the final touches were missing. As a result, she hadn't sprayed too much water while wrapping her piece up for her day in fear of wetting it too much. But at the same time, she didn't want it to get so dry that she couldn't work on it anymore. The last thing that she wanted was for it to dry completely at the last second.

Although the ceramics room was probably one of the more popular art classes, it was partly hidden at the very end of the art wing. A corner hid it from view from the passing student, and even though there were some ceramic pieces on display in the glass cases throughout the hallway, the majority of students missed the ceramics room itself.

As Marinette turned the corner to the room, she was surprised to see that unlike when she came with Alya, the room door already slightly propped open. She shrugged it off. Other students had probably come with the same intention Adrien did or planned to stay after to work on their pieces at school.

She'd barely opened the door halfway when she spotted a rather familiar looking redhead in the room. His back turned to her, Nathaniel sat with his head propped up by both hands at the table closest to the door, the same table that he had sat at on the first day. A lump of unwedged clay sat on the table in front of him, untouched. It looked as if he was only staring at the clay, but without a view of his face, she couldn't be sure.

There was no one else in the room; even Ms. Ro wasn't anywhere in sight. For a few seconds, Marinette contemplated slowly exciting and waiting for Adrien outside the room when Nathaniel gave a soft sigh and lifted his head before picking up the piece of clay. He stood up, his stool loudly scrapping against the floor as he did so and began wedging with his back still turned to her. Reassured that he wouldn't hear any sound that she might make, Marinette began to slowly back out of the doorway.

She'd nearly made it back out into the hallway when she noticed a flash of dark purple out of the corner of her eye.

Her eyes widened. Without thinking, she flung the door open. The sound caused Nathaniel to start, but he only had enough time to slightly turn his head when Marinette grabbed hold of his arm, yanking him backward towards the door. The sudden force caused him to fall back on her with a yelp, dropping his clay in the process.

"What the f—"

Without even looking at him, she automatically shoved him through the door and into the hallway, all while keeping a tight grip on his arm. She didn't bother closing the door; akumas had the ability to get through just about anything. Instead, she instinctively ran, dragging Nathaniel behind her.

"Marinette?!" Nathaniel said incredulously. The boy's eyes widened even further as he stared at her in shock. "What are you—"

"There's an _akuma_ after you!" she said, a frown on her face, inwardly cursing. She hadn't actually meant to grab him; most people would just give a warning shout. But no, she just _had_ to have her Ladybug instincts take over and try and save the boy. Not that she wouldn't have normally done so, mind you. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder just in time to see the butterfly fly out of the ceramics room behind them. "I thought you were working on controlling your emotions!"

"I—I said I was _working_ on it!"

"Nathaniel!" Marinette groaned, turning a corner. Well, _she_ turned the corner. Nathaniel nearly crashed into it. Never having to really need to exercise outside of gym class, the poor boy could only focus on not faceplanting as she yanked him through the halls. She was in the middle of considering just picking him up and princess carrying him to safety when Adrien stepped out of the bathroom at the end of the hall.

"A-Adrien!" she squeaked, veering to the right to avoid crashing into the blond boy as they passed. "I, um, gotta go. Sorry!" she called hurriedly over her shoulder just before turning into the main hallway, leaving a bewildered Adrien staring after the pair.

"What in the…" He turned back as his ears picked up a faint yet rather familiar sound, just in time to see an akuma casually flapping its way past him. The darn thing didn't even acknowledge him as it lazily floated after the pair. Adrien sighed.

"Plagg, claws out."

* * *

"Spots on!"

Nathaniel shielded his eyes as the flash from the transformation momentarily blinded him. When he lowered his hand, he couldn't help but gape for a second at the superheroine. Although he had been certain even before her admittance, seeing the transformation before his own eyes was still unbelievable, to say the least. Even if the said transformation happened immediately after being dragged throughout the school and unceremoniously shoved into the first empty classroom they chanced upon.

She turned, after checking that the door was locked. It was futile, they both knew, but it was worth a shot. Brushing past him, she briskly made her way to the other end of the classroom as she took out her yo-yo.

Still slightly out of breath, Nathaniel cautiously followed her. He watched with mild interest as she twisted open her yo-yo, revealing a small screen on the inside, before holding it up to her ear.

"Um…"

"Chat? I need you to come to Collège Françoise Dupont. Like, right now," she said, her eyes fixated on the two doors to the classroom. "I'm in one of the classrooms on the second floor—I have someone with me I need you to meet. Uh huh. Yeah. See you in a bit." She snapped her yo-yo shut.

"Er…" He took a hesitant step towards her. " What's the plan?"

"I'm going to purify the akuma before it even gets to you. Stay behind me." She didn't look at him and held the yo-yo in her hand, her body tense as her eyes darted between the two doors to the room.

"That's it?"

She glanced at him, the faintest of smiles on her lips. "Did you want me to bash it in with my yo-yo first?"

"...Kind of, yeah."

She rolled her eyes. "Your request is duly noted. Now get behind me."

"Will this even work?" he asked, moving behind her. She turned to glance at him. "I mean, is it even still following me? I...I think I'm calm."

"Were you calm earlier?"

"Earlier?"

"In the ceramics room. I'm pretty sure it didn't just randomly show up for no reason." She turned back, facing the doors once again.

"I was...a little sour," he admitted. When she didn't reply, he hurriedly added, "but not that much. When I heard you and, um, Adrien talking about meeting up today after school. If it bothered me that much, it should have shown up then."

"I wish it showed up then," she mumbled, almost to herself. It was at that moment, her yo-yo beeped. Relaxing slightly, she answered it.

He felt a twinge of annoyance at her words. It wasn't his fault that the akuma was after him again. Sure, he may have gotten slightly irritated when he heard that they were going to meet up again, but he was pretty sure that he wasn't nearly irritated enough to get akumatized. And yeah, maybe he did get a little annoyed at the memory when he went down to the ceramics room after school and indulged in a few seconds of internal ranting but he was careful to not let himself get out of hand.

Ladybug turned, a small frown on her face.

"Yeah. I will." She snapped the yo-yo shut. "The akuma flew away."

"I told you I'm—"

She held up a finger. "And then it started coming back again about two seconds ago as Chat was telling me that it was leaving. What happened?"

He stared at her in disbelief. "What? Why?"

"Your guess is better than mine. Get away from the windows."

"Um, why?"

"It flew out of the school when it stopped following us. Now it's planning on coming in through the windows. Get behind me."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because I can see Chat a couple roofs away making dramatic gestures at a little black thing flying our way. Now get away from the windows," she said, brushing past him as she went to open a window. He took a few steps back as she did so.

A few blocks away, he saw Chat Noir standing on a rooftop, making comically large gestures at a space in front of him. He could just make out a tiny spec of black in the gestured space.

"Stay here. I'll be right back," she said, pushing the window as far as it would go. "I'm going to go purify it."

"W-Wait, Marinette."

She paused, stiffening a little. " _Ladybug_."

"Um, Ladybug. Right," he said apologetically. "Why are you purifying it?"

"So it'll stop trying to turn you into a supervillain?" Again, she added silently.

He shook his head. "No, I mean, what if it stops following me?"

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"When it stopped following me, it flew away, right? What if it was returning to where it came from?"

"You mean to Hawkmoth?" she said, surprise on her face.

The name vaguely rang a bell in his head. "Yeah. Wouldn't it be better to follow it?"

"Well—" Her yo-yo sounded again. She picked up almost instinctively.

"Chat? Yeah, yeah, I know. Change of plans. We're going to buy some time, but I need you to keep an eye on the akuma," she explained quickly. "Is it still coming for him? ...Good. Uh huh. Yeah, we're going to make a run for it. I'll explain in a bit."

She hung up.

"Um, Mar—Ladybug, it's almost here."

"Great. Try to stay calm," she said, right before picking him up.

His eyes widened. "W-What are you…"

And then she tossed him out the window.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **Oh hey. Yeah, I know this is late. Lol parents are getting divorced and I picked up doodling fanart which is on my newly made Tumblr if ya wanna check it out. I'll probably never understand Tumblr, but I'm SplatterCracker on there so yeah. Now that shameless advertising is out of the way, have another chapter.**

 **No pity, please. I just felt like I owed an explanation.**


	19. Chapter 18

Chat usually didn't panic when it came to Ladybug. He trusted her completely; heck, he'd even trust her with his very life any day of the week. But despite all that, he couldn't help but seriously doubt her judgment when he saw her toss Nathaniel out the window.

He let out a sigh of relief once he saw her catch him around the waist with her yo-yo as she clambered out after the boy. He cupped his hands around his mouth.

"Don't kill him!"

"I'm won't!" She called back, her voice slightly faint on the wind as she focused on pulling the boy back up before princess carrying him. The akuma was across the street now.

Ladybug gave the akuma a quick glance. Her lips moved, and Nathaniel hesitantly wrapped his arms around her neck. Even from this distance, Chat could see the blush on the boy's face.

He scowled at the sight. If memory served right, Nathaniel had been rumored to have a crush on Marinette, something that had never really bothered him until now. Rumors also said that the artist had started liking Ladybug again after before recused from being akumatized. The latter was a much less popular rumor, but it was still a rumor that had gone around nonetheless. Either way, he wasn't too happy with the situation.

As soon as she was satisfied that the artist wouldn't fall off, Ladybug leap off of the small ledge they stood on. Lightly landing on the pavement below, she wasted no time before running to the left, making a huge circle around the path the akuma was taking before using her yo-yo to swing up onto a nearby rooftop. The akuma seemed to hesitate before turning to follow. By the time it had turned, however, Ladybug had already put a few rooftops between them.

Cautiously, he approached the edge of the rooftop. The akuma was still following them alright, but something was off. He'd noticed this earlier when he had first followed it and had somewhat ignored the fact at the time, but it seemed...slow. Throughout the past year, he'd seen his fair share of akumas and although he had noticed that they weren't the fastest of creatures, they certainly shouldn't be _this_ slow. When it had slowed down earlier, he'd kept a cautious eye on it only to see it start to lazily float away from the school altogether as if it had lost interest. As he called Ladybug to let her know, however, it had suddenly turned again, flapping its way to the school once more.

It was strange, to say the least.

Now, the akuma began to slow once more. It didn't even make it back across the street before it started to drift completely off course, He pulled out his baton.

It took a few rings before she picked up.

"Ladybug? It stopped following you two."

"That was fast," she said, surprise in her voice. "Are you sure?"

"Purrty sure. How's Evillustrator doing? What's the plan?"

"His name is _Nathaniel_. I'm going to take him somewhere safe to keep an eye on him, you keep following the akuma. We think that the akuma might return to Hawkmoth. Call me if it does return to wherever Hawkmoth is, we're going to try and figure out Nathaniel's akuma problem on our end."

Chat frowned. Since when had "we" referred to something other than him and Ladybug? "What happens if the akuma doesn't return to Hawkmoth?"

"Call me and I'll come and take care of it. Nathaniel's idea is worth a shot. We might not get another chance like this for a while."

"Right. Did Nathaniel's idea have a good reason for me following the akuma instead of you? You are the one with the yo-yo, y'know."

She hesitated. "It's better if I talk to him."

"I see." His tone was a little snippier than he intended, but if Ladybug noticed, she didn't comment on it.

"Well, call me if something happens."

"Yeah, I will. See you soon."

* * *

Ladybug frowned at her yo-yo, the ended call screen flashing at her before disappearing. She closed the yo-yo. "Huh."

"What's wrong?" Nathaniel looked up at her curiously. Even after they had stopped on a rooftop to answer the call, he still hadn't let go of her neck. It was a little amusing, really, she didn't think that he was the kind to have a fear of heights. She didn't mind; carrying him was nothing while she was transformed. Along with the more notable powers that came with being Ladybug, the transformation also seemed to give her a bit of extra strength and agility as well. It was thanks to that small superhuman boost that she hadn't broken some bones by now.

"He hung up."

"...Were you not done talking?"

"I was…but he never hangs up first. I'm usually the one who does." She made a face. "I actually teased him about that once and waited for him to hang up. That call went on for a good ten minutes of him telling me puns over the call before I gave up."

"Maybe he was in a hurry," Nathaniel suggested.

"Maybe," she said, unconvinced. "Do you want me to put you down?"

"...Can we get off the roof first?"

"Ah...right." She'd nearly forgotten they were on a roof. She looked around. "We can just stay here until Chat calls."

"Ma—Ladybug, it's windy."

"Don't tell me you're afraid of the wind as well as heights," she said, rolling her eyes. "C'mon, the roof is perfectly safe. Even if you do somehow throw yourself off of the roof, I can catch you in a second with my yo-yo."

"It's...nevermind," he mumbled, looking down. He released his hold around her neck, awkwardly scrambling to his feet again as she let him down. He rubbed his upper arms absentmindedly.

"It shouldn't take too long for Chat to call back. Think you can keep your emotions in check until then?" she said, almost teasingly. He pulled a face.

"You make it sound like I have anger issues."

"Do you?"

"No," he said immediately. She smiled.

"I was kidding. Don't have to get defensive." She loosely crossed her arms. "So what's up?"

"What do you mean?"

"An akuma tried to get to you twice in the past twenty-four hours. Twice," she repeated, stressing the last word. "If you count what happened just now as two different times then that would bump the number of times it came after you to three. So what's up?"

He shifted uncomfortably, mumbling something just too low to understand.

"What?"

"I...I don't know," he muttered.

"You don't know?" she echoed, partly in disbelief.

"I mean—I _know_. But it shouldn't have happened. I wasn't angry or anything," he protested. His grip on his arms tightened.

Ladybug raised an eyebrow. "It just came after you for no reason," she deadpanned with a hint of sarcasm in her tone.

"I was only a _little_ annoyed!"

"Hawkmoth doesn't send akumas after people who are a 'little annoyed.' Otherwise, we'd have akumas everywhere."

"Maybe Hawkmoth messed up," he suggested, but she was already shaking her head.

"Hawkmoth messes up, but he doesn't send akumas chasing every little annoyance. What else happened?"

"That was it, I swear," Nathaniel said, looking down. He started rubbing his upper arms again, this time a little more vigorously.

Ladybug frowned. Nathaniel wasn't looking at her. Instead, he stood stiffly, unmoving save for his hands.

"What's wrong?"

"An akuma's after me," he answered dryly.

She rolled her eyes before gesturing to him. "That's not what I meant. Are you that scared of heights? We're not even near the edge of the roof."

"...I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"If you say so…" It was at that moment that her yo-yo beeped again. She glanced at Nathaniel before answering.

"Hello? Chat?"

"It's not going to Hawkmoth," he said flatly.

She bit her lip. Chat never sounded like that when talking to her, even on a bad day. And his bad days consisted of being affected by an akuma. "What do you mean it's not going to Hawkmoth? It hasn't even been five minutes."

"I mean, it's not moving. It flew for a bit and then landed."

"Where did it go?"

"It landed on a tree in the courtyard of some small restaurant a few blocks from the school and it hasn't really moved since."

"A restaurant?" she repeated. "Is Hawkmoth a chef?"

"Doubt it. The place looks pretty busier; the kitchen's probably even busier. He wouldn't have time to transform during business hours," he said. He paused. "How's...Evillustrator?"

"His name is Nathaniel and he's fine." She automatically glanced at the boy in question. "We can't seem to figure out why the akuma is so bent on getting to him. Well, not yet anyway. We're still working on it. Is there anything near the restaurant? Another business or something that Hawkmoth could be working for?"

"No not really...there are a few houses but that's it."

"Which restaurant?" Nathaniel interrupted. He was watching her curiously.

"Uh...Chat, what's the restaurant called?"

"The Whole Beast. Why?"

"Nathaniel asked." She slightly turned to the boy. "It's called The Whole Beast."

"The Whole Beast?" Nathaniel said, surprised. A look of worry overcame him. "My house is near there."

"You live near there?" She said, frowning. "What do you mean you live near there? How close?"

"Uh...across the street?"

"You live _across the street_?"

"He lives _where_? Seriously?" Chat said, the same surprise in his voice. "Call me crazy, but that doesn't sound like a coincidence."

Ladybug groaned. "That means that it's probably not going back to Hawkmoth. Chat, send me your location; I'll come and purify it. You come and make sure nothing happens to Nathaniel."

"We're swapping places?"

"Just a precaution. In case something...happens. We're on a roof. I'm sending you where I am now."

"You're going to leave him on a roof?"

"It's safe, I swear."

Chat chuckled. It was a small chuckle, but it was a chuckle nonetheless. The sound was enough to relax her a bit. Maybe Nathaniel was right; Chat could have just been stressed with following the akuma. "Did you say the same thing before throwing him out the window? You know, the _second story_ window?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Bye Chat," she said, rolling her eyes before ending the call. As she did, Chat's location pinpoint flashed on her screen.

"Nathaniel, I'm going to purify the akuma. You'll stay here until I give the all clear; Chat is on his way to make sure you don't...fall off the roof or something," she said, sending her own location to Chat before snapping her yo-yo shut.

"Can't you just take me down first?"

"I already told him you're on a roof," she said with a smile.

"Are you sure it's not because you're annoyed with me ruining your time with Adrien right now?"

"Annnnd I'm going. Try not to get akumatized before Chat gets here. See you later." She took out her yo-yo.

"W-Wait."

She paused. "Yeah?"

"Are you coming back? A-After you get rid of the akuma, I mean." He didn't meet her eyes.

"Um, probably not. I have to detransform and I can't go around rooftops as a civilian. Sorry," she added the last part as an afterthought. He didn't seem surprised or even too disappointed. He nodded.

"See you tomorrow then."

"Er, yeah. Bye."

With that, she swung away.

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **This and the last chapter are short because I plan on adding a lot more to these two in particular in the future after I finish writing. Thanks for reading!**

 **3/6/18: Wut, I did? The heck was I planning to add**


	20. Chapter 19

**Ceramics Fact!**

 **Slip actually comes in different colors. No, not those boring mediocre shades of clay, but actual _nice_ colors. This kind of slip isn't really meant for use in handbuilding, but rather for decorating. My personal favorite color slip for decorating is blue.**

* * *

It was _freezing_.

Well, not as cold as winter, but the already lower-than-usual forecast of combined with the rooftop winds was something that he had not dressed for. Technically, it _was_ still winter. He had suspected that Marinette's transformation gave her a slight superhuman advantage in more ways than one so that she could save Paris in any weather, but to be completely oblivious to the cold was ridiculous.

He shivered again, his hands automatically rubbing his arms a little more vigorously.

As thrilled as he was to have unexpectedly gotten more time with Marinette, it would be nice if it wasn't so sudden. And if she hadn't literally thrown him out a window from the _second_ floor. He still suspected it was her way of being passive-aggressive after he took her time away from Adrien today.

Nathaniel's hands paused, a small tight-lipped scowl barely pulling at his lips at the model's name. Then he shook his head and sighed.

There was no use being jealous. He knew that Marinette liked Adrien and by extension, _Ladybug_ liked Adrien. He'd been trying to come to terms with that for the whole past month, a task easier said than done. Still, he knew that the faster he accepted that, the better.

Who on earth would ever like someone like him, after all?

Before he could further wallow in self-pity, he heard a faint thud come from behind him, causing him to turn. Chat Noir, having just landed on the rooftop, straightened, regarding him with a small, fixed smile.

Nathaniel automatically took half a step back before he could stop himself. Despite the superhero's seemingly friendly face, there was something...off. Like a feeling that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Nathaniel stiffened slightly as he watched the other boy warily. He wasn't going to throw him somewhere too, was he?

Chat inclined his head a bit.

"Evillustrator?"

"Um...Nathaniel," he replied slowly, a small frown on his face. It's been a while since anyone had called him that. Naturally, there were a few people who had teased him about being akumatized, but they were nothing more than a few playful jabs. Students were used to knowing at least a handful of people who had been akumatized, with their class in particular having the highest rate of akumatization. This time, however, Chat's tone held none of the playfulness the other students had used. Instead, it was carefully neutral.

Chat nodded, seemingly brushing off the reply. "Ladybug told me to watch you."

"Y-Yeah."

The silence stretched between them. Nathaniel looked away, fidgeting slightly as Chat continued to study him.

Finally, Chat asked, "Aren't you cold?"

Nathaniel shook his head stubbornly, even after Chat raised his eyebrow, unconvinced. But he didn't push the matter further. Instead, the superhero changed topics.

"Why's an akuma after you?"

"...I don't know."

"Uh-huh. And I'm the king of England."

"Really, I don't!" Nathaniel said a little defensively. He paused. "I-I mean, I don't think I do…"

"You don't think…?"

"I got a little...annoyed. Earlier," he finally relented.

Chat said nothing, gesturing for him to go on.

Nathaniel sighed.

"I got a bit, um, upset. Yesterday. And the akuma came after me then. But I outran it. And I saw that it wasn't following me when I got home so I thought I lost it. But today, it came after me again even though I wasn't nearly as upset as yesterday. I don't know why," Nathaniel explained, crossing his arms. He sorely missed his sketchbook. He'd left it in the ceramics room and without it, it felt awkward holding nothing to his chest during times like these.

"You outran an akuma," Chat said slowly, frowning.

Nathaniel nodded.

"And it didn't show up again until today?"

The artist nodded again.

"Huh."

"What?"

"It's just...I don't think akumas work like that. There hasn't been an akuma since then. Usually, when a target calms down, the akuma just finds someone else," Chat said, tapping his finger to his cheek. "If this is the same akuma then it hasn't gone after anyone else. That explains why it waited outside your house after you calmed down. It's after you specifically."

Nathaniel felt his stomach drop. "W-Why me?"

The superhero shrugged. "Dunno. You've already been akumatized before, and Hawkmoth never goes after someone he went after before. Unless…something's changed."

Chat continued to frown thoughtfully.

"But that doesn't make sense. It's only been a month. And you're probably one of the more rebellious victims of his so whatever made him change his mind, it's probably important to him. The only things that Hawkmoth is after are our powers, so unless you know one of our identities…"

Nathaniel froze. Chat, noticing this, narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"You don't know one of our identities, do you?"

The artist refused to meet his eyes. "N-No?"

" _Nathaniel_. Do you know one of our identities?"

"Just...Ladybug's," he finally mumbled. He didn't dare meet Chat's eyes. He desperately prayed that he wasn't about to get thrown off the roof. Even without looking up, he could feel the murderous look he was receiving.

He let out a small sigh of relief when he heard Chat's baton go off with an incoming call from Ladybug.

Chat huffed. Flipping open his baton to reveal a small screen on the inside, he held up to his ear and slightly turned away, just barely keeping Nathaniel in his field of vision.

"Ladybug? I...yeah. He's safe. Hasn't fallen off the roof. Yet." Chat muttered the last part, glancing over at Nathaniel. "You got it? That's...good."

Chat paused, listening to the other end, the corners of his mouth pulled downwards in a frown. Unfortunately for Nathaniel, Ladybug's voice was just too faint for him to hear from where he was standing, and he had no desire to take a step closer in an attempt to listen. Dying wasn't high on his wish list for the day, particularly death by a superhero. A very annoyed superhero at that.

After a minute of listening, Chat let out a sigh. He pinched his brows. "I know, I know. There's just...we need to talk. It's important. Can we meet up after this…? That's fine. I'll wait for you on our usual rooftop after I let him down. I'll see you later." He snapped his baton shut, not bothering to wait for Ladybug's reply. He turned to Nathaniel once again, causing Nathaniel to flinch.

"If you tell _anybody_ her identity, I will hunt you down, understand?" Chat said sharply, glaring at Nathaniel.

"Even you…?"

"I already know."

Nathaniel looked at him, confused. "No you don't."

Chat raised an eyebrow.

"L-Ladybug told me. She said that she didn't tell you yet."

"She didn't."

"Then…?"

Chat didn't answer and instead took out his baton once again. For a second, Nathaniel was afraid that he was going to smack him with it, but Chat merely took a step towards the rooftop edge and gestured for him to come closer. After a moment's hesitation, the artist complied.

"Let's just get you down before I get tempted to do something stupid."

* * *

 _"We need to talk."_

Ladybug bit her lip worriedly. She _knew_ something was off earlier. Chat's tone, him abruptly hanging up on her...it was all so unlike his usual self. He hadn't even made a single pun during their conversations today and a small part of her briefly wondered if he had been akumatized without her noticing before remembering that Hawkmoth wasn't usually capable of having two separately akumatized victims running around at once like that. She had thought that whatever the problem was, he would talk to her about it during patrol later tonight but never would she have imagined that he would want to meet up during the day. The only times that they usually met up in the day was when there was an akuma attack or special ceremony that they should attend together.

After detransforming following her purifying Nathaniel's akuma, she had to run back to school. To her disappointment, Adrien wasn't anywhere to be found, even after checking the ceramics room. Nathaniel wasn't there either, but she had kind of expected that, with her being much faster than him even as a normal civilian. One cookie from her locker emergency stash later, she was off again, swinging her way towards the rooftop that Chat and she usually met up at right before patrols.

And, of course, Chat was already waiting there for her. Even from half a dozen rooftops away, she could see him form leaning against a wall with his arms crossed. She let out a grimace as she tucked away her yo-yo. That can't be good.

As she got closer, Chat made no move to walk closer to her, or even uncross his arms for that matter. Instead, he simply watched her land lightly a few feet away from him, his expression carefully blank.

"Chat? What's wrong?"

"He knows who you are."

Ah. She fought to keep the surprise off her face, as well as the sudden guilt. "Yes."

"Since when?"

"I don't...Since last month, I guess." She sighed. "Chat—"

"Why?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why him?" Chat's neutral expression quickly turned to one of anguish. He uncrossed his arms, his hands balling into fists. "I-I thought we were partners."

"We are, Chat," she tried, but he shook his head.

"Then why? Not telling each other who we are, I can handle that. I get it. It's safer this way. But after being partners for so long...you trust him with your identity more than me? I-I thought I'd be the first person you'd tell your identity to, if you ever did. Don't you trust me?" His voice broke at the end, his shoulders slumping.

"Of course I do Chat. You know that," she said gently. She reached out to touch his arm, but he pulled away.

"Then?"

"Chat, do you really think that I'd tell someone other than you my identity before I got a chance to tell you? I didn't tell Nathaniel. He figured it out himself." She made a face. "I didn't even know that he knew until recently."

He looked unconvinced. "Really?"

"Really," she promised.

"He figured it out by himself?" His voice was doubtful.

She nodded.

"If I had to choose someone to tell my identity to, you would be my first choice Chat. We're partners, remember? Nothing will ever change that."

He visibly relaxed, although he kept his hands loosely balled up at his sides. She almost smiled in relief.

"Then...will you tell me?"

Now, it was her turn to tense up. Chat's eyes were nearly unreadable, save for a hint of curiosity as well as fleeting jealousy from earlier. Although his arms were no longer crossed, his posture was guarded, challenging almost.

Ladybug pressed her lips together. She had kind of expected this. She didn't think that this would happen so _soon_ , but a part of her knew that it was probably unlikely that Chat wouldn't hear about Nathaniel knowing about her one way or another. After that, it was only a matter of time before Chat would ask again.

 _"You should tell Chat Noir."_

Tikki's words echoed in her mind, a suggestion that had happened not even a week ago, and she wondered if foreshadowing was one of the gifts kwamis had. True to her own words, she _had_ thought about it. Telling Chat would be a risk, simple as that. She hadn't been lying when she said she trusted him, but there were too many possibilities. Even if Chat never falls victim to akumatization, who knew if a future villain would somehow have the powers of drawing out the knowledge from him somehow? She already had Nathaniel knowing who she really was, telling Chat would be doubling the risk of her identity eventually getting to Hawkmoth.

And yet, it was a risk that she owed him.

She took a deep breath.

"Fine."

Chat blinked, clearly not having expected her answer.

"What?"

"I'll tell you on one condition," she said, holding up a finger. Her voice sounded far steadier than she felt; she couldn't help feeling like she was making a huge mistake, and yet it didn't seem right to _not_ tell Chat now that Nathaniel knew. "You won't tell me who you are."

" _What_?" He stared at her, baffled. "Why not? It's only fair!"

Ladybug shook her head. "My identity is already compromised. If Hawkmoth somehow gets to Nathaniel and finds out who I am through him, I don't want to start a chain reaction. If I know who you are, Hawkmoth might get that information from me in one way or another. If I'm ever akumatized or something—"

"Those are all ifs! If Hawkmoth gets to Nathaniel, if you're akumatized...I don't care about all that! Ladybug, Hawkmoth _won't_ win," Chat protested. "And even if Evillustator comes back and tells Hawkmoth who you are, you won't lose your earrings. It'll be a little harder to protect them, yeah, but I'll be there to help you! And knowing you, you'll never be akumatized. You're _Ladybug_."

"You don't know I'll never get akumatized!" she argued, clenching her fists. "You don't know me outside of being Ladybug! I-I'm _weak_ , Chat. I'm not perfect, I'm not _anything_." She looked down at her feet, holding her elbows close to her body.

"Ladybug..." He reached out to her, but she shook her head. Taking a breath, she looked up, her eyes firm despite the uncertain termor in her lips.

"Chat, you've always told me that you trusted me. You never really questioned my decisions, even when they could have put you in danger. Right now, I'm asking you to trust me again. Paris can't risk having both of its heroes falling into the hands of Hawkmoth. If I'm ever akumatized, I need you to be there to stop me. And after what happened today with Nathaniel, the possibility of my identity being leaked to Hawkmoth is getting bigger and bigger. We need to be ready for that. I'm not going to make any more mistakes. And knowing who you really are when I'm in this much danger can easily turn into a mistake that will cost Paris both Ladybug and Chat Noir. I'll tell you who I am because you're right, we're partners. You have every right to be upset from Nathaniel finding out who I am first. But you have to accept my condition. As superheroes, we have a duty to keep Paris safe as best as we can."

Chat didn't answer right away. He studied her, meeting her gaze evenly as he chewed on his bottom lip. Finally, he let out a sigh.

"You'll really tell me who you are?"

She nodded. Giving their surroundings a quick glance, she took a step back and closed her eyes.

"Tikki, spots—"

A finger on her lips stopped her, and she opened her eyes in surprise as she reflexively took half a step back. Chat smiled at her.

"That's enough, my lady."

She blinked, uncomprehending. "What?"

"You don't have to tell me who you are," Chat said. His posture was completely relaxed now, a satisfied smile on his face. She frowned.

"What? Why? I thought—Don't you want to know?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"And...?"

"I really did want you to tell me who you are yourself earlier. I was...jealous. A little." Chat grimanced. "But I was selfish. I didn't really think of Paris, or how you might feel when you're basically being forced into this. I'm sorry. But knowing that you _would_ tell me...that's enough for me for now. So thank you, my lady."

"I..." She blushed. "You made me say all that serious stuff for _nothing_ then?"

He laughed. "Well, it wasn't for _nothing_. Think of it as bonding time, the most purrfect time of all!"

"Chat Noir, I am going to throw you halfway across Paris."

"Aww, don't be like that, bugaboo. I'm your purrecious partner after all, right?"

"Sure. Come here for a second, _partner_."

"...My lady, why are you taking out your yo-yo?"


	21. Chapter 20

**Ceramics Fact!**

 **Glazes are not all fired at the same temperature. Some glazes require a higher temperature and some require a lower temperature.**

 **My high school ceramics teacher actually didn't care about this too much and ordered many glazes without teaching us the difference, so the first time I learned about this is when she glanced at my finished piece and said something like, "Oh yeah, that glaze is actually supposed to be fired much higher so that's why it's so dull."**

 **Thanks, Ms. Ro.**

* * *

"And then she flung him off the tower! I was so lucky they happened to pass by near my house; now I have it all on video!" Alya gushed over speakerphone. "This is _so_ going on the Ladyblog!"

"Mhm. I'm sure it is," Marinette replied, brushing her hair with one hand and flipping through her sketchbook with her other. She paused on one page, stuck a page marker on the edge, and continued. Already, a handful of other bright pink page markers stuck out of her book. A towel draped over her shoulders like a makeshift poncho, absorbing the last of the moisture from her hair. To avoid getting wet, Tikki had given up her usual spot on her shoulder and instead lazily floated nearby, munching on a cookie.

"It's a good thing too. Since there haven't been any akuma attacks for a while, I haven't had anything new to post. I mean, it's great that we're not being attacked but a girl's gotta get an interview at least, y'know? Do you think I can catch them on patrol?"

"Er, no," Marinette said automatically with a grimace. She and Chat already had to change their usual meeting roof _twice_ ever since Alya figured out their patrolling schedule and they were starting to run out of ideal roofs.

"No?"

"I mean, it's kinda cold out right now? And we have school tomorrow and stuff…"

"Um...no? Girl, it's Friday. Were you planning on going to school tomorrow?" Alya laughed. "Are you feeling alright there?"

Marinette froze. "What? Are you serious?"

"Uh, yeah. Why, did you leave something at school or something?" Alya asked, slightly distracted. Marinette could hear small banging noises from Alya's end followed by some giggles.

"I wrapped my ceramic piece loosely since I thought today was Thursday!" Marinette said, her voice rising with panic. Tikki looked up curiously, licking the last of the crumbs from her hands before floating away to her cookie tin for more. "And I was going to go after school today to work on my piece—it'll be bone dry by Monday!"

"Are you working on the same bowl I watched you work on?"

"Yeah—"

"The one that was basically done and perfect to everyone except you?"

"Yeah, but—"

"The same bowl that Ms. Ro herself said was _amazing_?"

"Well, yeah, but—"

"But what, Marinette?" Alya said, failing to keep a chuckle out of her voice. "It's perfect! Was like one grain of clay in the wrong place or something?"

Marinette pouted. "It's just...Nathaniel has a better piece."

"Nathaniel as in the Nathaniel who you told me admitted that he did ceramics before? Marinette, I love you, but chill on the competitiveness."

She made a face. "Weren't you the one who wouldn't stop bragging about how you got the highest score on your journalism quiz?"

Alya laughed. "Alright, maybe we can _both_ chill. Seriously though, I wouldn't worry too much about your bowl. And why didn't you bring it home like Adrien did? You two did go get it and all. Speaking of which, you haven't told me anything about what you guys did!"

Wincing, Marinette scratched her cheek sheepishly. "About that…"

"Oh no."

"I kinda...ditched him?"

"Marinette, _please_. What, when, where, why, and how on earth?" Alya asked in disbelief.

"He went to the restroom and something urgent came up so I left?" Marinette said with uncertainty. It wasn't exactly a lie.

"What in the world was more important? Did Jagged Stone show up at your door and ask for you? _Marinette_." Alya enunciated her name slowly, disapproval dripping off her tone.

"It was an emergency?"

"An emergency? Did something happen?" Alya asked, worry creeping into her voice.

"No, no," Marinette said hurriedly. "It's just that, um, Nathaniel needed help."

"Nathaniel?" Alya echoed the name in surprise. "That's the second time he's come up in like the past few minutes. Why the sudden interest in him? You don't have a crush on him now, do you?"

"What? No!" Marinette said, pulling a face. She heard a soft thump from her left, presumably from Tiki rummaging around the cookie tin.

"That was a really fast denial. Are you sure you're not starting to crush on him?" Alya teased.

"I'm two hundred percent sure that I'm not starting to crush on him," Marinette said firmly, glad that Alya hadn't probed for details on what exactly Nathaniel needed "help" uncrossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. "And besides, aren't you being a little too eager about me having a crush on him?"

"Relax, I still ship you and your main crush. But honestly, my main goal is for you to be happy in the end, so if you find someone better, I'll support you all the way. You know that."

"I know." She smiled. "Thanks, Alya."

"No problem. I'll always have your back," her friend replied easily. Marinette began to open her mouth to say something when she heard a faint creak to her left. Now, that in itself wouldn't be too unusual. Her house wasn't exactly the newest house in the area, and even Alya had trouble remembering where all the creaky spots were despite coming over so often. The problem was that Alya was in her own house and Tikki didn't have nearly enough weight required to make the floor creak.

She casually opened her desk drawer, picked out her fountain pen, and began twirling it. "Hey, I gotta go now, I think my mom wants some help cleaning up downstairs. I'll talk to you tomorrow?"

"Sure. I gotta go put my little sisters to bed soon anyway. Nights!"

"Night, Alya," Marinette said with a smile. She waited for a moment after the call ended before she stopped twirling her pen, pointy end up, and stayed like that, deceptively relaxed. Was this an akuma targeting her specifically? Did Hawkmoth know who she was now? Had an akuma come back for Nathaniel? She was planning on suggesting to Chat later about pausing patrols for a while and take turns watching Nathaniel for the next few days, but she hadn't expected him to be akumatized so _soon_. Unless this was Chat. Sure, she would rather be Chat playing a prank than an akuma who knew who she was, but she was going to kick his sorry butt for scaring her.

She switched her pen to her left hand. Fight or flight? Most normal civilians have flight as their first response, but would that even matter if this was an akuma who knew who she was already? It wasn't long until she heard another barely audible creak from somewhere over her left shoulder.

Heck it, she wasn't about to risk her earrings.

Using her right hand to push off her desk and whirl her chair around, she leaped to her feet as she swung her left hand outwards in a horizontal swipe with her pen, its sharp point barely deflected by Chat's baton at the last second as he let out a surprised yelp and retreated.

"Chat!" Her relief was quickly replaced by annoyance. "What are you doing?"

"What am _I_ doing? You just tried to kill me!" He said in disbelief, not lowering his baton. She gave a quick sweep of her room, noticing that Tikki had already hidden herself away somewhere. The kwami probably noticed Chat entering before having a chance to alert her.

Marinette frowned. "I wasn't aiming at any of your organs."

"Fine. You tried to _painfully_ wound me. Is that a fountain pen? Why do you have a fountain pen?" Chat mirrored her frown, finally lowering his baton as he warily stepped towards her again.

"I tried calligraphy a while ago, but it obviously has more use as a self-defense weapon against intruders now," she replied, only partly sarcastic as she lowered her pen. With her other hand, she drew her towel closer around her shoulders, glad that she'd forgone her usual tank top tonight in favor of a t-shirt. "Why are you here? Did something happen?" Concern lined her voice at the second question.

He shook his head.

"Then why…?"

"Do I need a reason to visit my friend?" He asked back, grinning.

She rolled her eyes. "You said something like that yesterday too. Turned out that you thought something was up with me. "

"Was I wrong?"

"I told you, I'm fine," Marinette sighed. "I promised you that I'd let you know if I needed your help already, didn't I?"

"Purrhaps I just wanted to see you," he said innocently.

"Chat Noir suddenly wanted to randomly see me two nights in a row? That's not suspicious at all," she said distractedly, examining her fountain pen. The metal tip was slightly bent to one side, no doubt the work of Chat's baton. She bit her lip in annoyance. It wasn't exactly an expensive fountain pen, but it was the only one she had.

He tilted his head slightly, the gesture strangely cat-like. She wondered if it was a trait that came with his miraculous, or if he normally did that even as a civilian. She didn't _think_ that she had picked up any particularly ladybug-like habits after becoming Ladybug, but she never really paid attention to things like that as she was usually too busy doing other things, like saving Paris and all.

"Do you really have no idea?" he asked curiously.

"Should I?"

"I mean, you _are_ pretty smart."

"Can't you just tell me?"

"Where's the fun in that?" He grinned at her. "Besides, maybe I'd rather you figure it out yourself."

"Have you always been so mysterious?" she asked, a bit impatiently.

"A cat wouldn't be a cat without secrets," he replied cheekily. His eyes slid past her. "I see your decorations haven't changed. Is that who your friend was talking about?"

She turned, glancing at the wall behind her desk.

"Adrien?" Her cheeks colored slightly. "I told you I only admire—"

"-his work, yeah. But like I said," he spread his arms. "people might get the wrong idea if you have a crush and you only have _his_ pictures on your wall."

She gave a halfhearted glare. "He's only one of the guys Alya mentioned."

"So you _do_ have a crush on him, purrincess." He smirked victoriously. Then, his smile faltered and his eyebrows drew together. "Wait, 'one'?"

"Annnd I'm changing the topic. Why are you here again?"

He ignored her, a thoughtful frown tugging at his lips as he crossed his arms. "You have a crush on two people? Who's the other one?"

"We are not talking about this," she replied firmly. She held up a finger as he opened his mouth in protest. "Nuh-uh. We've only talked like...twice. That doesn't mean I have to tell you anything. Besides, you probably don't even know these people. Why are you so interested?"

"I—it's nothing," he mumbled. He slightly turned his head away, all traces of playfulness from earlier gone. His cat ears seemed to droop a little, if it was even possible, and Marinette couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt. She hadn't been too harsh, had she? She didn't _think_ that she was in the wrong. But looking at Chat now, she couldn't help but feel as if she was. She chose her next words carefully.

"Alya was talking about….another classmate. But he's not—Alya was probably just teasing me since everyone knew that he had a crush on me a while ago," she said slowly, hoping that was enough to satisfy his curiosity without giving too much away. However, instead of looking satisfied, Chat tensed.

"Someone who had a crush on you?" His voice held a small edge to it, and she couldn't help but regard him warily.

"You're not going to try and figure out who it is, are you?"

"Of course not." He paused, clearly on the verge of saying something more. But he shook his head and his fists clenched and unclenched by his sides. He forced out a smile. "I wouldn't waste my time asking around about a guy who used to like you."

She frowned, a little offended. "You don't have to call it a waste of time..."

The corner of his lips twitched upwards at this. "That's not what I meant. Besides, how could I possibly mind spending time on you, purrincess?"

"One more pun and I'll kick you out my window myself."

His eyes twinkled with mirth, his grin never leaving his face. "I think I missed you more as a timid civilian who was in still awe of me."

"Funny, I don't remember such a time." She finally sat down again and placed her pen next to her sketchbook. He laughed.

"I guess you wouldn't. So how was your day?"

"Don't you have patrol?" she asked, ignoring his question as she glanced at the time on her phone. There was only half an hour before their usual patrol time and she had been planning on leaving earlier to do something. Why was Chat even out so early? She knew that Chat had a harder of a time sneaking out as he sometimes had trouble arriving to patrol on time.

He waved off her question. "Not now."

"So you were planning on crashing at my house until then? How heroic," she said sarcastically. But despite her words, she stood up again. "Did you eat yet?"

He perked up. "Do you have food?"

"We have leftover croissants from today. Do you want some?" she asked.

He was nodding enthusiastically even before she finished speaking, his eyes bright. "That sounds purrfect."

She smiled at his sudden childlike behavior, ignoring his pun. "I'll be right back then."

One sneaky trip to the kitchen and an oven reheated plate of croissants later, she slowly opened the trapdoor to the room, careful to not let the door slam onto her floorboards and wake her parents like she had done so many times as a child. Admittedly, a handful of those times had been on purpose when she threw tantrums as a kid. She still felt guilty about that.

As she pulled herself up into her room, Chat looked up from where he sat in her just recently occupied pink chair. Or, rather, he looked down as she silently lowered the trapdoor and picked up her plate of croissants. His eyes followed her eagerly as she walked over and placed the plate on her desk in front of him.

"Are you studying my pen or something?" she asked, gesturing to her fountain pen in his hands. He twirled it.

"Yep."

She raised an eyebrow but question him further and instead pushed the plate closer to him. "Hurry up and eat. I need to go...sleep. Soon."

Not needed to be told twice, Chat was already biting into his first croissant and had his second in his hand by the time she's settled onto her chaise lounge. For a minute, there were no sounds between them except for Chat's chewing. Despite how fast he was devouring the pastries, he ate them almost elegantly, she noted. It made her wonder if he was normally well off and just really hungry, or a little on the poorer side who was just naturally graceful. But come to think of it, Chat had always been quick to down his cup of hot chocolate after patrols, usually finishing his cup long before she did in the past. On top of that, he had a habit of all but inhaling the occasional snacks she brought from home. She bit her lip.

"Chat?"

He swallowed, his tongue flickering out to lick his lips and waited for her to go on.

"You're not…" She struggled with her words, unsure of a gentle way to phrase then. "You're not...um, super hungry, are you?"

He tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

Marinette shrugged, feeling very awkward. "I mean, you're eating really...enthusiastically?"

He laughed. "These are good croissants. This is one of the best bakeries in Paris, after all."

She shook her head. "No, like…" She made a helpless gesture.

"Like…?" Chat mirrored her hand movements, amusement on his face. She quickly stopped.

"Like..." she let out a frustrated huff. It wasn't like she could give examples of when he annihilated the sweets she offered him sometimes after patrols. Technically, this was the first time that "Marinette" ever saw him eat. She changed her approach.

"Are you not able to eat these kinds of food at home…?" she tried, hoping that her implied meaning got through clear enough.

He blinked, considered her words, and shook his head slowly. "Not really. My...lifestyle doesn't often let me."

Her eyes widened in surprise. "Really? What about your parents? Don't they eat dinner with you?"

As soon as her words left her, he let out a grimace. "I usually eat alone."

"But—"

"My mom's dead," he cut her off, a look of sadness passing over his eyes. Then they hardened. "And I don't see father often anymore."

"I-I see," she said, taken aback. She wasn't sure how to respond to that; it wasn't often that someone told her, a middle schooler, about someone passing away. On top of that, this was the first time that Chat had told her about this much about his personal life. Granted, it was her who always insisted on them keeping details about their personal lives a secret, but she couldn't deny that she'd been curious on more than one occasion. But never had she imagined that he was living through these kinds of hardships.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked gently. He shook his head.

"Just seeing you is enough." He smiled, and she felt a pang in her chest. She set her mouth in resolve.

"Well, I don't think it's enough. If you're ever hungry, just stop by here sometime. My window is always open for you if you want some croissants or something."

He looked at her in surprise. "Really?"

She nodded vigorously. His face broke into a huge smile and she couldn't help but smile along with him.

"I love you so much right now."

She chuckled. "Sure, sure. Whatever you say."

He pouted at her. "I'm serious."

"Uh-huh. If you're done confessing your love to me, can you hurry up with your croissants?"

He rolled his eyes but complied. "In a hurry to go to sleep?" he asked, lightly stressing the last word around his mouthful.

"Yeah." She briefly pulled her phone out of her pocket, checking the time before putting it away again. Only less than twenty minutes before they were supposed to meet up for patrol. There was no helping it, she supposed. She'd have to do patrol first. There was no way she'd be able to transform, sneak out, do her thing, and meet Chat on time unless he left _right now_. Not to mention having to make a thermos full of hot chocolate for the two of them later. She sighed. And here she was hoping to go to bed earlier than usual tonight.

As Chat popped the last piece of croissant into his mouth, he stood up and stretched. She rose as well, reaching over to pick up the now empty plate from her desk.

"Thanks for tonight, purrincess. I guess I'll be going now. Wouldn't want to stop you from taking your cat nap any longer." He chuckled as if he'd just told an inside joke, and made his way to her bed. He pulled out his baton. "I'll see you soon."

"Yeah. Bye Chat." She barely had time to give him a smile before he gave one last wave in farewell and gracefully leaped to the top of her ladder and out her rooftop door. Immediately after the trapdoor closed with a thud, Tikki flew out from under her blanket on her bed.

"Chat came by again," the kwami said in mild surprise, more a statement than a question, and her eyes flickered between the trapdoor to her roof and her window.

"Yeah." Marinette pulled the towel off from her shoulders, folding it over her arms. "I didn't think that he'd drop by so soon."

"Maybe he had a good reason?" Tikki suggested, settling on the back of her pink chair.

Marinette rolled her eyes. "Maybe. But I doubt it. I'm going to go put these away and tie up my hair. Did you want me to grab you any more cookies from downstairs? I'm going to put some extras in my bag for tonight."

Tikki shook her head. "No thank you. Are we doing something important tonight?"

Marinette smiled. "Just a small stop after patrol."

* * *

 **Author's Note:**

 **I'm gonna pretend that season two isn't canon in this story. I swear, I already had to adjust the plot to account for so many new details that keep coming up in the new episodes. So yeah. Thank you for reading!**


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